


Walk on Water

by vailkagami



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alien Invasion, Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Extremis, M/M, Post Civil War, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Issues, differs from recent canon in several details, discussion of a possible case of rape not perceived as such by the victim, suicidal ideations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vailkagami/pseuds/vailkagami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America is back from the dead, and all should be well. Too bad the world didn't stop and wait for Steve's return and no one ever gave him a chance to get used to the latest changes in the team dynamics. And it would really help if things between him and Tony weren't quite as raw - and if both of them weren't so spectacularly bad at talking to each other.</p><p>Also, there's a threat to the existance of mankind. But no one but Tony actually cares about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jukeboxhound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Иди по воде](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6616570) by [MouseGemini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MouseGemini/pseuds/MouseGemini)



> I could list all the details in which this story differs from comic canon, but that would take too long. I had a big, elaborate backstory planned out that would have explained all (or at least most) of the changes, but didn't get around to actually including most of it in the story, because the thing was already longer than it should have been. Maybe I'll write more in this 'verse one day and include all the stuff I had to leave out here.  
> Thor is awsome, by the way. If I'd managed to include him, you'd know why.  
> And Clint is alive and taking some time off somewhere. The conversation explaining what he does had to be cut because it was not actually relevant to the plot.  
> So, yeah, this feels a bit like a fragment, to me at least. I hope it works anyway.
> 
> To jukeboxhound: This is your gift for the Avengers Holiday Exchange on livejournal. I'm sorry it became so long. I didn't manage to come up with something for any of your awesome prompts (well, I did, but by then this one was almost finished), but I tried to include as many of your likes as possible. I hope you'll enjoy it at least a little.

The last of the creatures went down with a shriek that made Steve’s ears ring and a heavy thud as its scaled body hit the pavement. He shook his head to clear it, the painful noise seemingly stuck inside his skull. None of the other winged, insect-like monsters that had suddenly crawled out of the sewers had made any noise like that, or any noise at all besides the buzzing of their wings. This last one, the one that did, was for all Steve could see exactly identical to all the others and he absentmindedly wondered if that supported Tony’s theory of the creatures sporting a hive mind. In that case, the last one to fall might simply have given the death-cry for the entire group.

Judging by the way the things had coordinated their fight, Steve was actually pretty sure that there had been a hive mind at work. They needed to keep that in mind for the next time these creatures showed up – because if there was one thing years and years of being a superhero had taught him it was that basically no threat that had surfaced once would never surface again. Even villains who got killed usually came back sooner or later. Steve would know, after all.

With these monsters, as individual creatures, he had no doubt that they would _stay_ dead. But it seemed pretty likely that there were more where they had come from. Admittedly, though, they hadn’t been all that much of a threat, especially since the Avengers knew something about coordinating their movements as well.

Even now. Even when some of them weren’t even on speaking terms with one another.

By the time Steve’s head had cleared enough from the noise, he found himself alone amidst three dozen fallen insect-monsters the size of ponies. Iron Man had taken off as soon as he was no longer needed, not lingering any longer by Steve’s side than he absolutely had to, and Steve felt disappointment at the realization even before he felt anger. Eventually he tried to settle for relief because he didn’t really want Tony to be around and any attempt at conversation would only have been awkward, but the feeling wouldn’t quite stick.

Anger it was, then. Being angry at Tony was, after all, so very easy.

“Guess _he’s_ not sticking around for the clean-up,” Luke’s voice sounded right beside Steve, reminding him that he wasn’treally alone among smashed monsters so much as he was alone among smashed monsters and a bunch of brightly-colored superheroes. He shook his head, deciding to forget Stark for the moment.

“There might be more of them,” he voiced his earlier thoughts. “We need to find out were they came from.” Which meant a visit to the canalization. Steve suppressed an unhappy sigh as he activated his com-link. “Miss Marvel, how are things with you?”

 _“Sticky and disgusting, but over,”_ Carol’s voice replied. _”Iron Man just splattered the last of them against a wall.”_

That explained where Tony had gone, then. Steve tried to ignore the fact that Carol and her team certainly hadn’t faced any more difficulties with the insectoid invasion than Steve’s team and had hardly needed the extra help. In fact, he decided to ignore Tony altogether. “We need to find out where they came from before more of them arrive.”

 _“Based on the fact that they gravitated towards the water but didn’t come to the surface anywhere near it, the old subway seems to be a pretty safe bet.”_ That was Tony’s voice, slightly mechanic sounding but completely free of distortions in a way that told Steve he was using Extremis to access the comm. unit. _“I’m gonna check it out.”_

“No need,” Steve found himself saying. “We got it covered. Stay up here and watch for any new arrivals.”

He cut the connection and looked up to find Wolverine staring at him with a disgruntled expression and claws still dripping slimy bug-matter. “Did you just volunteer us for canalization duty?” the mutant asked incredulously.

“You volunteered for canalization duty the moment you decided to spend your life fighting evil in colorful spandex,” Steve reminded him. “Let’s go. The sooner we start the sooner it’s over.”

 

-

 

The old subway had been a good tip, but they didn’t make for a comfortable trip. The tunnels were partially under water, having been abandoned long ago after being flooded too many times. They had been intended as an express network of subway lines _beneath_ the subway, but even though the project had been sponsored by the rich and the famous as an exclusive subway unavailable to the general public, maintenance had proven to be too expensive and the tunnels had been given up after only a few years. As far as Steve was able to judge it, the whole thing had been a bad idea from the start. And not only because it meant he had to sneak through the cold darkness several hundred feet beneath New York to look for monster bugs.

At least Tony had had the right idea: the bugs liked the water. Steve, Logan and Jessica Drew found a large number of empty egg shells and a few dead bugs in a small pool of water that glittered in the artificial light of their torches. Wolverine took a sniff at the dead bugs, then at the water.

“Dead for about three days,” he told them. “The water is full of chlor, highly concentrated. I wouldn’t drink it if I were you.”

“I wouldn’t drink anything down here,” Spiderwoman pointed out. “Or touch it if I can avoid it.”

Steve could sympathize. “So the water got poisoned and they had to migrate? Why go topside if they kept to the tunnels before?”

“You want a guess?” Logan shrugged. “It’s the poisoned water that drove them out of hiding, and with so many new members of their crawling society, they decided to go where the food is.” He gestured at the eggshells. “All these hatched recently. They probably lay here for decades.”

“Maybe they were never intended to live in the tunnels. Maybe some bugs just placed their eggs here so they’d be safe until they hatched,” Jessica speculated.

“And then they did, but the water got poisoned and they were driven out before they were quite ready,” Steve completed the thought.

Before the Avengers had been called, the two swarms of giant bugs had killed three people; eaten their flesh right off their bones. Steve grimaced at the thought that the creatures they fought might not even have been fully grown yet.

Logan seemed to have the same thought. “Good thing their parents didn’t show up.”

“Tony was right,” Steve mused. “They were seeking out the water. They took the exit closest to the harbor that’s directly accessible from these tunnels.”

Logan made a soft, snorting noise, while Jessica let the light for her torch run over the empty shells one last time before sending it back the way they had come, into the oppressive darkness that could hide all sorts of things. “Think there are more of them?”

“Not anywhere near here,” Logan said. “Would’ve smelled them.”

“I’m impressed you can smell anything at all down here.”

“I can smell enough.” His claws came out with a faint noise and retracted again, so quickly Steve barely noticed at all. “And I say we should go back up, because I smell a lot of things all around us that will not tolerate us in their territory much longer.”

Steve shuddered. He listened and heard nothing. But Logan had his claws out on the way back and that was enough to make him clutch his shield and hurry.

 

-

 

Wolverine relaxed gradually the closer they got to the exit and the daylight that waited for them. He was the only one; Steve and Jessica remained tense and at least Steve breathed an audible sigh of relief when they climbed out of the tunnels and onto the street.

The world beneath the city belonged to other people. Other people and other things. As long as they kept to themselves and didn't threaten the rest of the population, Steve was happy to leave them be.

There was a large, strangely shaped statue standing beside the exit they climbed out of. After the long, silent darkness of the tunnels, its stony, unmoved stare was vaguely unsettling, even considering that it had no face. Steve suppressed another, even more irrational shudder and turned away from it, trying to figure out where they were.

His communicator cackled. _“Did you find anything?"_ Tony's voice sounded in his ears. There had been a communication blackout while they were in the tunnels, the reception capitulating before tons of rock and metal, but Tony, being Tony, had known the moment they were back within reach. The Extremis had probably alerted him.

"Just an empty nest," Steffi replied. "Seems they are all gone. Anything here?"

_"All quiet. Seems that was it. Meet us back at the mansion when you are ready."_

"Yeah, see you." Steve almost winched at his own words; they sounded far too normal, too familiar. Talking to Tony, even those few words, had almost made him forget that outside of missions and Avenger business, they didn't. That if anyone asked Steve how he felt about Tony these days, he would have a hard time telling if it was just anger and betrayal, or of there was genuine hatred thrown in the mix as well.

They were all working together as a team again, but nothing had been undone. Acting like it never happened wouldn't fix anything, and Steve should better start to remember that.

Especially since he was the only one who ever seemed to forget, at least where Tony was concerned. Things between the other members of the team were still tense and Tony kept away from all of them, either not caring enough to seek them out, well aware that most of them only tolerated but didn't actually _want_ him on the team.

Of all the Avengers, even the pro-registration heroes, he was the only one who hadn't come to see Steve after he had come back to life.

It was hard to believe that Steve had only come back two weeks ago, and some of that time was nothing more than a blur of sensations and fractured memories; the sound of a gunshot, pain ripping though him and Sharon’s voice from far away. Then a vague recollection of movement. Steve thought that he might have walked somewhere, remembered, perhaps, the road beneath his feet, but if he tried to grasp it, there was nothing more specific than a dream.

He didn’t even remember showing up at the mansion’s doorstep, had only learned he had walked there under his own power from Sam, who was the one who had caught in as he stumbled through the door. The first thing he knew was waking up in his old room and barely recognizing it now that all pictures and personal affects were gone.

The second thing he remembered was everyone coming to meet him: Sam, Luke, the two Jessicas, the ones who’d fought at his side; but also Carol and even Reed Richards along with the rest of his team. Everyone, even the ones he had fought so bitterly before his death, had been so very eager to welcome him back. Everyone but Tony.

It was probably unfair that he recalled the confusion and bitterness over Tony’s absence more clearly than the joy over seeing everyone else.

In the days that followed, literally every superhero currently active in the United States, as well as some retired ones, had come to see him. Only Tony remained absent. And it was stupid after everything that had happened between them, but Steve had still expected him to come. He had expected him to be the first to greet him, even though he couldn’t explain why.

For a while there, in the beginning, he had been convinced that Tony was dead, and that had been a thought he’d found himself unable to face. It had taken him courage to ask where Iron Man was when the team assembled around him for the first time, and Carol’s short and suspiciously vague reply had been, “Busy.”

So there had been relief, and then the disappointment and anger had set in full force. They had dominated Steve’s emotional world ever since, and now the fact that his own mind seemed so eager to forget all the big and small betrayals Tony just kept piling on top of each other only fuelled his irritation.

In the light of that, it was probably for the better that Tony seemed to have cut the connection without waiting for Steve’s reply.

Steve scowled at that, too, then hoped no one had seen. He had been back to life for barely two weeks and was already leading a superhero team again, with all the responsibility that entailed. He needed to get a hold of the world again, and of being alive in it, before he could try to figure out what to do with broken friendships and feelings that led him nowhere. None of that mattered for his job – if anything, this fight today had shown that mutual resentment or not, Captain America and Iron Man fought together as well as they always had. It didn’t matter what they privately felt. It didn’t affect their performances and therefore, resolving their issues had no priority.

It didn’t matter. Plain and simple. It was meaningless. Had they messed up, had they made errors because they no longer blindly knew what the other was doing and hadn’t had each other’s back in battle at least, then Steve would have been forced the confront Tony about all the things that stood between them and find a way to work it out.

But Tony wasn’t even giving him that much.

 

-

 

In the time Steve had been dead, a lot of things had happened. Skrulls had invaded the Earth and were driven away. Thor returned. Amnesties had been handed out by the dozen to the unregistered heroes who had helped save the world from the invasion. Registration was not repealed but generally treated by everyone and their dog like it didn’t exist, at least where the heroes with amnesties were concerned. At some point everyone went insane and thought it would be a good idea to hand SHIELD over to Norman Osborn of all people. At some later point, Nick Fury had been reinstated as director.

Steve had heard the stories told in ten different ways by ten different people and it had taken him a while to at least figure out in what order everything had happened. The most important thing (since the world was not currently under Skrull-rule) was that the SHRA was no longer an issue. Not to the general public, anyway. It no longer was anything worth fighting over.

That didn’t mean it hadn’t left scars. Steve understood that his return had done a lot to unite both those who fought with him and those who opposed him in their joy to have him back (and that was a humbling thought right there, an honor he wasn’t sure he deserved), but tension remained. It had been easy to forget, during Steve’s darkest moments, that there had been more people affected than just him and Tony, but now, even though they were learning to work together again, it became obvious that more than just their friendship had been broken. Once everyone got used to working as one team again, much of it might be repaired and trust, Steve was sure, would be rebuild, but things would never be the same as before.

Or maybe he was seeing things too pessimistic, just because he couldn’t imagine anything ever being the same again for _him_.

The mansion had been rebuilt. That was another thing Steve had not expected, even though he should have. The last time he had been here, he had fought Tony in the ruins. (Tony, who’d come to talk and ended up fighting Steve without his armor and without a chance.) Now it was standing again, housing the Avengers again, as if nothing had ever happened.

Of course that, too, was just a facade. Inside, it was glaringly obvious that this building was but a copy of the one Steve knew. Everything looked mostly the same, but it didn’t feel like home. This wasn’t the first time the place had been rebuilt, but somehow this time, it felt off. Wrong.

Inside the mansion, everyone else was already waiting for Steve, Logan and Jessica as when they made it back from the sewers. The conversations that were going on halted as everyone turned to look at Steve expectantly and wait for his report. They could have looked at Jessica or Logan, but they looked at him. They always did. Usually, it didn’t brother him.

The big, misshapen statue on the lawn was looking at him, too.

Logan ignored them all in favor of getting a beer from the fridge. He didn’t give the impression of being very interested in what was going on, but then, he knew what Steve was going to tell them since he had been there, and no one expected him to make any report of his own.

Before he started, Steve took a moment to look over the assembled heroes he had had lost hope to ever see peacefully in one room again. Carol and Jessica Drew were turned towards each other, apparently eager to continue some conversation that had been interrupted by their latest mission. Jan, small and winged, was sitting on Hank’s shoulder and Redwing on Sam’s. Luke stood with his arms crossed, his Jessica by his side. Peter was hanging from the ceiling, just for the heck of it as far as Steve could tell. It looked almost normal, almost fine.

Thor wasn’t there. He had returned, but preferred to spend his time in Asgard. After everything that had happened, Steve couldn’t blame him, but he felt his old friend’s absence like a missing limp. Thor had always been at the very core of the Avengers, right beside Steve as one of his closest and most trusted friends.

Tony stood apart from the others, near the door, as if he were ready to leave. He was looking right at Steve, but was still in armor, his helmet closed. Not for the first time, Steve cursed how easy the armor made it for Tony to hide behind the face plate and keep everything inside, unseen. He could be glaring behind the mask. He could be smiling, or frowning, or baring his teeth. Steve didn’t know. All he knew was that he was looking at him.

Or maybe he was asleep in there. It had happened before.

“So, was that the last wave of monstrous killer bugs to swap over the city or do we have to stock up on bug spay?” Peter asked, pulling Steve’s mind back to the topic at hand. He told them what the three of them had found, and what conclusions they had drawn, keeping it short and clipped. The next day, a few of them would be going down to the tunnels again and search the rest of the old subway for more nests, they decided. No one was particularly eager to volunteer for the job, but Logan was set anyway thanks to his sharpened senses. He snarled at the mention, but didn’t look altogether too irritated by the prospect. He just looked like Logan. A certain amount of irritation was part of his basic setting.

When Steve was done, his eyes searched out Tony again, but Tony had already left the room.

 

-

 

Tony, it later turned out, had gone to the lab in the mansion’s basement right after the meeting. Not that Steve had asked, or gone looking for him; it simply became obvious when the next morning, just as Wolverine, Spiderman and Miss Marvel were about to leave, Tony appeared to present them with the bug-detector he had build overnight.

Peter’s eyes were surprisingly bright with eagerness when Tony explained how it worked, but if it was the scientist in him being excited about this toy or the fact that they would not have to crawl through the darkness full of monsters for hours, Steve couldn’t tell. What he understood was that Tony had found some properties in the greenish, acidic slime that the bugs liked to use as a weapon that were unlike anything he had ever seen before and had tuned his detectors to look solely for those properties. Under the earth their range would be limited, but the three going out to look would still be able to search a much larger area in a much shorter time.

“What do you mean by properties you’ve never seen before?” Steve asked once the others were gone. This was the first time since his return that he was alone with Tony. This was the first time, even, that he saw him without his armor on, the first time Steve saw his face, even if Tony seemed determined not to look at him. This was an opportunity Steve only now realized he had been waiting for, and he didn’t want to waste it talking about bugs. He heard himself do it anyway because it was important. It was something he needed to know about.

Tony was pale, with bloodshot eyes, and wearing an uncharacteristically badly fitting sweater, and Steve couldn’t stop staring at him.

“I mean, they might not be native from this universe.”

Steve nearly groaned out loud. This was just what they needed right now: interdimensional, man-eating monster bugs from a universe full of those things.

Tony seemed to guess his thoughts; something vaguely resembling a smile brushed against his lips and disappeared again. “That doesn’t have to mean the pathway to their dimension is still open. Wolverine said they have been there for decades at least, right? It’s perfectly possible that a couple of pregnant females fell through a gap between the universes that has long since closed, placed a few hundred eggs along the tunnel walls and died. This may well be over.”

“It would surely explain why we never saw anything of these things before,” Steve mused. Tony was right, it was all perfectly possible. “But when are things ever that easy for us?”

There was a sound like a soft snort. “Let’s keep an eye open for them. Logan and the others are scanning the tunnels and I’ll scan the area for any interdimensional portals there might be. It’s all we can do for now.”

It was. For now, there was no immediate action they could take, and that meant that they had time, right now, to talk about different matters. Steve wanted to say something but the room suddenly felt far too public. Any of the others could come in any moment. By the time he decided to speak anyway, Tony was already walking out of the room, swaying ever so slightly on his feet.

“Where are you going?”

“Lab,” Tony replied. “As it happens, I have an interdimensional energy scanner lying around, but there are some adjustments I have to make.”

Correction, then: There was no immediate action _Steve_ could take. Tony could make himself useful still, and he ought to, too. Steve let him go.

 

-

 

And then he didn’t see Tony again for days. Considering he hadn’t seen him for weeks beforehand, and before that he had been dead for months and before that they had tried to kill each other, maybe it wasn’t all that remarkable, but somehow it bothered Steve. They had been alone for a moment there, had had every chance to say things not intended for anyone else’s ears, and yet Tony had said nothing. Not even a simple “I’m glad you’re not dead anymore.” Not even a “Welcome back”, and most certainly no apology.

Steve was, quite frankly, pissed off. He tried not to be because it meant investing too much energy into something simply not worth it, but he couldn’t stop it. As usual, Tony got under his skin.

Even when he wasn’t actually around.

The search for bug nests and dimensional portals remained fruitless, to everyone’s relief. In the following days, the Avengers took care of some street-level crime; it was nothing big or particularly challenging and Iron Man never made an appearance. Tony seemed quite happy with sinking back into his seclusion and keeping his distance. And if he didn’t want anything to do with them, Steve would let him be. It wasn’t like they were friends, anymore.

So he ignored the issue, kept on acting as if Tony Stark was nothing more than a consultant who occasionally helped out with technological or scientific problems, just like everyone else was already doing. He was surprised when Jan approached him one day when he was leaving the mansion to go for a walk and out of the blue said, “You should talk to him.”

“Talk to whom?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act stupid, Steve. You have been grumpy ever since you got back, and after you saw Tony it’s only gotten worse.”

“I’m not grumpy,” Steve said, because he wasn’t.

“Oh yes, you are. You’re sulking.”

“I’m what?”

“Sulking, Steve. You are tense and close yourself off and yesterday you snapped at Peter for some silly joke.”

Steve frowned at her, trying to remember the incident. “Even if I did, what would Tony have to do with it? He’s barely even on the team right now. I haven’t seen him in over a week.”

“Exactly.” Jan looked at him with an expression that said, ‘Well, duh.’

Steve did his best to look blank, because that expression best reflected his thought process.

“Steve, every time you and Tony fight, or don’t talk to each other, or Tony’s just gone for an extended period of time you get like this. There’s a pattern. Now, you come back from the dead and Tony doesn’t come to greet you? You sulk. It’s not hard to figure out.”

“This isn’t about Tony,” Steve insisted, though he wasn’t even fooling himself. “I just don’t... I mean.” He suppressed a groan; here he was, stuttering like a schoolboy with a crush just because his mouth had started talking before his mind actually thought of what to say. Also, his start had sounded embarrassingly like a confession. “It’s going to be hard to work this team if he won’t talk to me,” he finally settled for. “I know he doesn’t care about me or our friendship anymore, but it would help if he could get over himself enough to at least acknowledge my existence.”

“Steve.” Jan’s eyes, that had looked at him with soft amusement before, now showed mostly sympathy – and something else. “Tony cares. You can’t imagine how much. He can’t even _handle_ how much. Your death broke him. Literally. He was in pieces, Steve. I… was worried.” She said the last words carefully, in a way something inside Steve didn’t like. “To be honest, I still am.”

“Tony’s fine.”

“Is he? Drowning himself in work, hiding from everyone, not sleeping or eating; does any of that sound remotely fine to you?”

“Actually, that all just sounds like Tony Stark.”

“Touché.” Jan gave him a half-smile, but her eyes remained solemn. “But I mean it. Getting you killed nearly killed Tony as well, but with everything that happened before he probably doesn’t know how to approach you. If _you_ still care about _him_ , at all, you’ll talk to him.”

“Tony didn’t get me killed,” Steve pointed out. “That was all on Red Skull.”

This time, Jan’s smile was a little brighter. She took Steve’s arm and playfully bumped into him as they walked down the sidewalk and past one of the ugly statues overlooking the river. “Talk to him, Steve. For all our sakes. You just came back to life; that’s a pretty joyous occasion for most people. You were given a second chance at everything. It’s about time you act it.”

 

-

 

So Steve did. Or at least he meant to. Meant to seek out Tony in his lab and have the talk they’d both been avoiding for so long. If nothing else, it would give him clarity over how Tony really felt. Because he was far from convinced that Jan was right. She and Tony had been friends for longer than Steve had known either of them, but it was evident that Tony didn’t talk to her any more than he did to Steve. Even Carol, who these days seemed closer to Tony than anyone else by the power of sheer determination, was barely seen with him anymore. Jan was right in one thing: Tony locked them all out. _No one_ knew how he felt about anything.

If nothing else, Steve owed it to both of them and the friendship they once shared to find out.

Except that, of course, Tony didn’t live in the mansion anymore. He had stayed there for a few days in the aftermath of the bug incident, locked either in his lab or his armor, but now that potential threat no longer demanded his attention, he had moved back to the tower where he was closer to his company. Steve didn’t talk to him because he simply didn’t get the chance.

He’d do it the next time Tony came by. Whenever that would be.

 

-

 

There was a robbery at a bank near Central Park. Not usually something superheroes were necessarily needed for, but the robbers were using cutting edge technology that was a little more than the police could handle, so the Avengers jumped in to help. It was no big deal in the end, because the robbers, for all their advanced tech, were basically acting the way all bank robbers did once they were surrounded by police and people with superpowers. There wasn’t even any need to call in Iron Man, who still was their go-to guy for all matters of a technological nature.

Only Captain America, Spiderman, Falcon and Wasp went out, the four of them a force more than enough to deal with this minor problem. Wolverine was busy with X-Men business, Luke was out with his family, Carol was running an errand somewhere, and even those few who assembled for this job were close to overkill. Spiderman even openly admitted that he was only joining them for these five minutes of excitement because it had been a slow week.

 In other words, they went into it far too arrogant and careless.

Nothing bad happened. They took out the seven robbers in a matter of minutes. The money was saved. More importantly, the hostages were saved. There was applause when they were done. Not even the criminals were physically harmed, even though one broke his dignity when he tried to hide behind a young woman in business attire who was paralyzed with fear and Peter shot little strings of webbing at him from various directions in the Spiderman-equivalent of tapping his shoulders from the wrong side before finally taking him out by webbing his masked face against the wall. And that was where Steve lost it.

He waited until they were well on their way home, away from any prying ears, but even that was hard. As soon as he felt safe to do so, he got into Peter’s space, doing his best to just sound stern but knowing he actually sounded angry. Really angry. Because he was.

Peter had just been swapping jokes with Sam and looked completely startled when suddenly Captain America towered over him and told him, in not quite those words, that he was an irresponsible moron.

“You could just have taken the guy out within one second,” Steve elaborated. “There was no need to toy with him like that.”

“Come on,” Sam said, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “It’s not like Spidey hurt him. And it’s also not like the guy didn’t have it coming, for terrifying that poor woman like that.”

“Exactly!” Now Steve stabbed his finger at both of them as if it would help drive the point home. “You played around with the robber without any consideration for the hostage. She was scared for her life and you made a game out of it.”

Peter looked chagrined, but also defensive. “I’m not an idiot! I’d never endanger anyone for fun, and you know it. First thing I did was web the blade of his knife. He couldn’t have hurt her with it if he tried.”

“And I bet she didn’t notice that. Damn it, Peter, not everyone deals with this kind of thing on a daily basis. That woman is probably going to need counseling to get over it. More of the hostages might. For us this was just a minor incident, barely worth remembering, but for them is was a traumatic experience and you _need to keep that in mind_.” Steve took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. He was a lot angrier about this than he had any right to be. “If nothing else, remember that for all our amnesties, the registration act is not off the table yet. This is exactly the kind of irresponsibility that can bring it back to everyone’s attention.”

The kind of irresponsible behavior that Tony had tried to keep in check with all the wrong methods. (Steve heard his voice, suddenly, back in the ruins of the mansion when Tony said, _It could have been me_ , speaking of the New Warriors and their disastrous mistake that cost so many lives and started it all. When he’d told Steve of the mistakes he had made when wearing the armor while drunk, and how he wanted a law that would hold him accountable if he, as a superhero, hurt someone even if he didn’t mean to.)

Before him, Peter flinched at the impact of his words, looking like a school boy chastised by his favorite teacher. (It brought back other memories of that day. _Everyone idolizes you, Cap._ ) Sam was frowning and Jan looked at Steve with an unreadable expression on her face. Steve met her eyes for a second before turning away. “Go home without me,” he told them. “There’s something I have to do.”

The last thing he heard before he was out of earshot was Peter asking the others, “Anyone got an idea why he seems to have it out for me lately?”

 

-

 

Start Tower was, well, towering over Steve for lack of a better word, like a damn threat he had to take on. But Steve was nothing if not fearless, and right now he was determined to get this over with. Because Jan was right, he needed to do this. Steve had thought any personal business between him and Tony didn’t matter anymore since they no longer had any kind of personal relationship, but he had been fooling himself, and if his issues with his teammate influenced his performance as a leader, he needed to do something about it.

Besides, his excuses for not dealing with Tony until now felt too much like running away, and that just wasn’t him.

So he entered the tower, drove up with the private elevator. No one stopped him. Apparently he was still welcome this far.

As it turned out, it was Jarvis who had allowed him entry. The old man smiled an uncharacteristically broad smile when he saw Steve and Steve found himself smiling back. He’d missed the butler, and told him so. “We all miss you at the mansion,” he added, because he knew it was true even if no one ever said anything. “Peter keeps stuffing the fridge with unhealthy food, and he doesn’t even live there. I think it’s because MJ keeps a close watch on what he’s eating at home. And Logan… well, you know Logan.”

“Living off beer.” Jarvis frowned, but it seemed to be more habit that real disapproval. He looked a little wistful. “I would like to return,” he confessed in his precise, British voice. “I always favored the mansion over the tower, but Master Anthony needs to be close to the company in these times, and to the workshop in the basement. It is not yet an option, though I’m confident the time will come.”

“You’re keeping the place spotless as always,” Steve observed. He couldn’t see much of the penthouse from his spot near the elevator, but what he saw looked almost unlived in. “We could definitely need your influence at home. Sure Stark won’t let you move ahead of schedule?”

It was meant to be a joke to show his appreciation, but Jarvis’ expression was somber and a little sad when he shook his head. “Master Anthony already told me to do so. I requested to remain here for the time being, as I think this is were I’m needed most at the moment.” He began leading Steve to the kitchen and Steve found every bit of the penthouse that he saw as spotless as the entrance. (All the pictures that used to decorate the walls were gone.)

It didn’t look like Jarvis was having all that much to do here.

“Where’s Tony?” Steve asked, suddenly tense. “I need to talk to him.”

“He has had a few important meetings in Bangkok and Beijing last week. He should come home sometime today, but I cannot tell you exactly when.”

Steve couldn’t even tell if what he felt at the information was disappointment or relief. “So I guess there’s no point in simply waiting here until he shows up?” Not that he had anything better to do, but he could well imagine that Tony would probably want to fall into bed and sleep for a day after getting back, rather than discuss unpleasant points of their personal history with Steve.

“It would depend, I imagine, on how much time you have at your disposal. I can tell him he shall give you a call once he returned. In the meantime we can ask Miss Potts if she knows more about his arrival time.”

Of course, if anyone knew about Tony’s schedule, it would be Pepper Potts. “Can you call her?”

“Naturally.” Jarvis went to a terminal inlaid in the wall and opened a video call with an ease that seemed out of sync with his past-century-British-butler image. The face of Pepper Potts appeared after only a few seconds and the frown on her face disappeared when she recognized Jarvis. Steve himself remained outside the camera’s vision and kept his mouth shut.

“Jarvis,” Pepper said with a smile. “And here I thought Tony would bother to update me for a change. What can I do for you?”

“There is a visitor for Master Anthony and we were wondering if you knew when he is scheduled tp come back, Miss Potts,” Jarvis replied, leaving Steve strangely grateful that he did not give away Steve’ presence. He liked Pepper, but right now he didn’t have the patience for the reaction people – even those who knew he wasn’t dead anymore – had when seeing him for the first time.

Pepper’s frown reappeared. It was an expression Steve was all too familiar with. “He came back about six hours ago. Didn’t he check in with you?”

“I would certainly have noticed had he returned to the penthouse. He might have gone directly to his workshop. I will check there.”

“Yeah,” Pepper said. She sounded resigned. “Good luck.”

“I’ll go check on him,” Steve said once the connection was cut. “I’m the one who wanted to talk to him, after all.”

“Very well,” Jarvis agreed. He looked at the coffee maker just about to be done but seemed to know that Steve wouldn’t have the patience for a cup of coffee right now. “If you can make him come up for food and sleep, I would much appreciate it.” He didn’t sound like he had much hope.

The elevator going down to the workshop was still password protected, and Steve was quite surprised to find his old code and voice-recognition still working. He had thought Tony would have changed it during their time as enemies. But the elevator carried him down and the door to the workshop opened to his voice, and there Tony was, standing underneath a shapeless construct and fumbling with wires and tubes Steve couldn’t even begin to put a name to.

The room was warm, much warmer than it used to be. Steve had expected it to be a little chilly as usual, but the temperature was just right. Tony was still wearing a long sleeved shirt underneath a baggy, oversized t-shirt that used to be white but was now covered in stains, the most prominent of them a black smear across the left side that Steve found himself staring at for no reason.

He was working with a quiet intensity Steve was used to seeing on him but had never grown tired of watching. Even now he hesitated for a long time before making his presence known. Whatever Tony was creating there, it had to be important. He never displayed this kind of focus when he was building something for fun.

“What is that going to be?”

Tony flinched at his voice and turned, surprise written all over his face for one precious, unguarded second before his expression closed off. He really hadn’t noticed Steve coming in. “What are you doing here?” he asked warily instead of answering the question. “Is there something you need?”

“Yeah, I need you.” Well, that came out wrong. Tony turned, for the first time fully looking at Steve, and arched his eyebrows, amusement softening the unreadable depths of his red-rimmed blue eyes. “Why, Captain, I had no idea.”

“I need to talk to you,” Steve clarified, feeling irritation rise inside him and letting it sound through his voice. Tony’s expression closed off again and he turned back to his work, clearly expecting Steve to go on.

Okay, this wasn’t a good start. Steve rubbed his eyes because Tony had his back turned and couldn’t see it, and tried again. “What are you working on?”

“A non-fuel engine for middle-sized high-speed boats the coast guard has commissioned, if you absolutely have to know. Big, very important contract. Don’t know if you heard about it, but the company’s had some problems lately and this prototype is due in two days, so you can see that I’m a little busy right now.”

And they were back to Tony trying to get rid of him. Steve frowned and tried to remain calm. Somehow, that was a challenge around Tony more often than not, even when Tony wasn’t doing anything particularly provoking. “Don’t you have employees for this kind of thing? I thought that was the whole point of having employees.”

“It would be, if they did it right. The schematics they handed in last week were for an engine that didn’t fit in the hull and would have exploded after an hour.”

He sounded frustrated. Steve was pretty sure he was making it sound worse than it was, though. Tony was of the unfortunate conviction nothing would be done right unless he did it himself. It was a cause for much irritation between them, and sometimes, war.

“Jarvis said you were in Asia until this morning. I trust that went well?”

“Moderately well. I have to get back there as soon as this project is finished. Provided no one tried to destroy the world in the meantime.”

“Don’t you ever take a break?” The words were out before Steve could stop them and he felt silly for asking, since the answer was obvious. Tony Stark didn’t take breaks, that was a well known fact. Even at the best of times it was hard enough to get him to eat and sleep at all, never mind on a regular basis. This, obviously, wasn’t one of the better times, if Tony’s pale complexion, sunken in face and hoarse voice were anything to go by.

(For a split second, Steve wondered if Tony was drinking again, then he felt bad for even thinking it.)

“When I have the time.” Which was either an outright lie, or Tony simply never did have the time for it. He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept in days. Last time Steve had seen him outside his armor, he had looked bad, now it was worse. It seemed like Tony _always_ looked worse than before, since their conflict had started. “But I’m pretty sure you didn’t come all this way to talk about my sleeping habits.”

Straight to the point, then. Steve had to keep in mind that Tony was not interested in small talk anymore, and neither was he. “I came because you and I need to talk and I’m tired of you avoiding the issue.”

The wrench Tony was handling was placed on the work table before him with an audible clank, but he didn’t turn around. “And what issue would that be?”

The nerve of that man. Sometimes Steve was simply astounded by it. “Are you serious? Do you really plan on pretending nothing ever happened? That you didn’t betray me – betray _all of us_ – by selling out and hunting us down like criminals? Do you think by avoiding me you can just go back to being part of the team as if nothing had changed?”

Tony’s hands on the workbench were curled to fists – loose fists, no force behind it. “Does any of this look to you like nothing has changed?”

“Not at all. Nothing is the same anymore, and yet you act like it is. All of you do, but _you_ more than anyone. As if you hadn’t thrown some of us in jail without trial, as if the Avengers hadn’t torn each other apart over your misguided decisions.” No, this wasn’t right. Steve wanted to talk, not fight. He hadn’t been able to just talk about things with Tony while they were still fighting, had been too angry and betrayed to listen to anything his former friend had to say, and he knew that maybe some things could have been different if he had. He had to try and calm down, but it was hard. Everything was still raw and painful. For the others, months had passed since the fighting ended, but for Steve, all the wounds were still fresh. “As if I hadn’t died,” he added, softer and more careful. “Jan said you didn’t take that well, but considering you never even came to see me after I got back, I have a hard time believing that.”

It was a long time before Tony answered, and when he did, his voice so was quiet and monotone, it barely sounded like him at all. “You were dead,” he said. “I got you killed and you were gone. You lost your life because of me; I… we. They lost you, Steve. You were _gone_. You said it yourself: How could I possibly just come to you, as if nothing had happened?”

Steve’s first thought was _Oh Tony_. This was the side of Tony Stark that hardly anyone ever got to see, a glimpse of all the vulnerability and self-loathing he usually managed to hide and that seemed to touch all of Steve’s protective instincts whenever it was exposed. But he was still angry and didn’t want to be manipulated by his own weakness. Didn’t want to feel sorry for Tony, didn’t want to forgive and forget just because Tony had become a victim of his own mistakes. This was too big for that. So what he actually said was, “But you are acting that way. You never even made an effort to fix things, just pretend everything’s fine. An apology wouldn’t patch this over, but the sentiment would have gone a long way. But no, you just show up every now and then to play hero, and then you disappear before anyone can call you out on your bullshit. If you’d just come to talk to me, offered an explanation, _anything_. But you couldn’t be bothered. I came back from the _dead_ , Tony. It’s a damn miracle, no matter who’s responsible in the end. Everyone came to welcome me back, even Carol and the others who fought for you. Everyone but you. I was gone, you’re right. And you tell me that bothered you, but when I came back you couldn’t even be bothered to say Hi.”

“They didn’t fight for _me_.” Finally, Tony was turning around enough to glance at Steve over his shoulder. There was a fine layer of sweat on his skin, testament to his too warm clothes in this too warm air. He was also focusing on the exactly wrong thing and thereby steering the conversation away from Steve’s point. “They happened to fight for the same goal as me, that’s all. Because Reed, Carol, Bishop, they all believed it was the right thing to do. I’m not responsible for their decisions, I didn’t brainwash Carol into thinking this was a good idea and I didn’t set out to destroy Reed’s marriage.”

Steve frowned, not sure where that last one had come from. “You can be damn persuasive, and you know it! Peter would never have followed you in the first place if you hadn’t manipulated him, and at least some of the others-”

“I’m not you, Steve!” Tony interrupted him. “No one would ever follow me just because I’m me and they trust my judgment. They all knew what they were doing.”

“Are you sure? Because no one has mentioned the SHRA anywhere since I came back. The status quo is pretty much what it was before you tried to force your ideas on all of us, and it seems to me that everyone, including Carol and your other followers, are happy with the way things are. No one has tried yet to enforce that stupid law on anyone, or even remind people that it technically still exists.” Steve heard his own voice, the biting tone. This wasn’t going the way he’d wanted it to, but maybe it was the way things had to be. Maybe what he had really needed was a confirmation that things between him and Tony were truly, irreversibly over. “And I wonder if maybe you’re keeping your distance because you are bitter over the fact that you lost. You won your war; I got arrested, then killed, and yet things still didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to, and you can’t get over that.”

To his surprise, Tony laughed, softly and without humor. “Things turned out exactly the way we wanted them to. The way they-” He broke off, suddenly doubling over coughing. The sounds were so harsh Steve instinctively took a step closer, concerned despite himself, but Tony lifted a hand and signaled him to stay away without even looking at him. “I knew from the start that you would never compromise, never register,” he said once he could. “I also knew that eventually something would happen, some threat would appear were you were needed. There would be amnesties and the status quo would be reinstated. I never meant for you… or anyone to die, but this, generally, is exactly the outcome I was hoping for.”

All things considered, it was hard to believe. “Seriously? And all that talk about you supporting the law, all that talk about accountability? Was that just for show, then?”

“The law is still in place,” Tony reminded him, his voice even hoarser than before, almost toneless. “And I stand by what I said. I also know that you will never understand. But the rest of us, those who aren’t perfect, we make mistakes. Not because we’re mind controlled or brainwashed or evil doppelgangers, but because we’re human and we fuck up. Just, with the powers we wield, when we fuck up, people get hurt. And it’s not enough if we watch each other, judge each other. The superhero community is too close-knit, or used to be at least. We’re hardly objective.”

“Don’t start with this again, Tony. Just don’t. It’s going nowhere, and I’m already pissed enough as it is.” They’d had this conversation before. There was no point in having it again, because obviously nothing had changed. Tony had seen everything go to hell around him and he still hadn’t learned.

Tony snorted softly. “Yeah, I noticed. But you’re right, there’s no point in repeating what I said before. I won’t change my mind and you will never understand what I’m trying to say because you’re Captain America, and you don’t make mistakes. No errors in judgment, no impulsive acts of anger while you’re wearing the costume. And certainly no driving under the influence.”

It should have sounded mocking, but Tony spoke calmly and earnestly, just stating facts. He really believed what he said, really believed in Steve’s virtue that much, and somehow that made everything even worse.

“I was going to kill you,” Steve said quietly, tensely. He was almost surprised to hear the words coming out of his own mouth, but Tony only twisted his lips into a smile that wasn’t even bitter.

“As I said. No errors in judgment.”

“So that’s all you’ve got to say about this? ‘Sorry, this went wrong, but I was still right’?”

“I didn’t say sorry.” Just like that, Tony’s defenses are back up and Steve knows that if he’d still had any interest in having a normal conversation with his old friend, it was now lost.

“Fine. Be that way. I actually don’t know why I bothered to come here in the first place.”

“You came to yell at me and remind me that I am a horrible human being and a disgrace to the Avengers,” Tony told him, having already turned back to his work. “You did both. Good job. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to save my company a somewhat important contract, and since a good bit of the fortune I make is used to buy your equipment, it would be in your best interest to let me finish this on time.”

“Oh, so now you’re playing the ‘Remember that I cover all your expenses card’!” Steve threw his hands up in frustration. “That’s low, Tony. That’s just-” He broke off, aware he might be overreacting. Everything had gone wrong here. Steve didn’t even know what he had expected from this meeting, but it wasn’t this. Seemed that Tony hadn’t lost his knack for disappointing him. “You know what?” he said, forcing himself to be calm and rational, just like everyone always expected of him. “It’s probably best if you keep your distance for a while. We’ll talk again when things between us are no longer this raw.”

He turned around and walked out of the workshop without waiting for a reply, and no reply was coming. When he reached the elevator, Steve threw one last look into the room and found Tony still standing in front of the workbench, his back to the door, his shoulders tense. He wasn’t moving. Then the doors slid closed and the elevator started moving, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts.

He regretted having come here. It hadn’t helped at all, only made things worse. There was no talking to Tony. At least not for Steve.

Because Steve was apparently simply not able to have a normal conversation with Tony anymore, one that was not ruined by all their baggage spilling over. Nothing here had gone as planned, but then, Steve hadn’t had a plan to begin with, and looking back he had to accept that he had overreacted, had let himself be steered by anger and had never really given Tony a chance to say anything that would have pacified that anger. Not that he likely would have, but if he had, Steve might not even have listened. This talk had been a total disaster, but Tony was not the only one to blame for that.

So much for the virtues of leadership and rationality that Tony had so praised in him the last time they had tired this conversation, with similar results. The ride in the elevator was long and Steve spent a good portion of the time resisting the urge to knock his head repeatedly against the wall.


	2. Chapter 2

There was another elevator up from the workshop that actually stopped on the ground floor instead of going up to the penthouse, but it required even more security clearance and was on the other side of the place, and Steve hadn’t felt like dealing with that. Now, he kind of wished he had, since it would have allowed him to escape more quickly, without having to go all the way up and down again. Mostly, it would have spared him having to report in with Jarvis, who was one of maybe three people on the planet who genuinely cared about Tony anymore.

The old butler came out of the kitchen when he heard the elevator arrive, looking at Steve expectantly, and Steve realized that he probably hadn’t even seen Tony in days, let along spoken to him. “I trust your meeting went well?” There was doubt in the question. Steve’s expression must have given him away.

He sighed. “About as well as could be expected. I lost my temper with him, he tried to push me away and I let him. I shouldn’t have come.”

He expected Jarvis to have some words to wisdom for him then, or maybe look at him with the kind of sympathy he reserved for people who had to deal with Tony Stark on a bad day. Instead the other man looked worried and almost upset at his words, in a way that made Steve tense up.

“How did he-”

“What did you do to him?”

Steve almost flinched when suddenly Carol appeared in the doorway. She must have been sitting in the living room, overhearing their conversation, and now she was glaring at him even as she breezed past him towards the elevator. Steve could only frown at her in confusion. She had fought against him in the war, but had been perfectly happy to have him back. There had been barely any tension between them since his return, yet now she was looking at him like he had personally attacked her.

Or one of hers. Carol had always been rather close to Tony, maybe even a little protective, but this reaction was hardly warranted.

“I didn’t do anything to him. We talked. It didn’t go well and I left again. That’s it.”

Carol only glared at him some more, then turned to look at Jarvis. “I’ll check on him.”

Jarvis nodded as if he actually knew what she was thinking here, and the elevator took Carol away.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, worried despite himself. “What’s wrong with Tony?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Sir,” Jarvis replied, now again calm and collected. “Miss Danvers arrived shortly after you. She has been worried about the outcome of your talk with Master Anthony, that is all.”

“Don’t give me that, please. I can tell you are worried as well.” A thought stuck him and made him feel sick. “You know I would never hurt him, right?” he added (and felt the weight of his shield in his hands, ready to strike).

“Of course we know that,” Jarvis assured him. “We are merely concerned about Master Anthony’s health. He has had some issues lately and the stress of a fight with you might aggravate them. But it is nothing for you to worry about.”

“Nothing… The man is on my team, Jarvis! If nothing else, I need to know if he’s out of commission.”

“We will inform you should that be the case, don’t worry. Right now, there is no reason to assume he is. Miss Danvers can be somewhat overeager in her concern, but I assume that is mostly because she was worried your conversation would result in another fistfight.”

Steve almost cringed. Of course Jarvis would have heard about their fights; they had had enough of them in recent months. There was no accusation on the old man’s face, though – for all that he loved Tony, he had to know that one of the things the genius superhero most often inspired in other people was an almost irresistible urge to punch him in the face.

An urge Steve had found harder and harder to resist lately. Actually, that he had this time was a great improvement.

“As a matter of fact,” Jarvis went on, “this might just prove a good opportunity to get that boy out of his workshop and have him have dinner. I should go prepare something now.”

It was a dismissal. Steve hesitated, caught between the need to get away from Tony before things escalated after all and the need to find out what was going on, when a short, unfamiliar melody originating from somewhere on Jarvis’ body interrupted his thoughts.

Jarvis reached into the pocket of his vest, his expression unchanging, and pulled out a cell phone, flinging it open. He turned his back to Steve so the leader of the Avengers couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders were tense in a way Steve had only ever seen in times of crisis.

There was a woman’s voice sounding from the other end of the line. Steve couldn’t make out what was being said, but he was sure it was Carol.

“I see,” Jarvis replied to whatever it was she told him. “Is Ma- Oh, of course. I’ll take care of it, Ma’am.” He flipped the phone shut and tuned back to Steve. “I’m afraid things will get a little hectic soon. I know you will forgive me for this lack of hospitality, but there are things I need to take care of as soon as possible.”

“What things?” Steve asked, momentarily forgetting that it was not, in fact, any of his business.

Jarvis seemed to not have forgotten because he didn’t reply, clearly distracted, and for him that was a memorable occasion.

Steve should go. He had no place here. “What’s wrong with Tony?” he asked, his voice soft. Pleading.

Jarvis looked startled for a second, before he focused on Steve again. “Master Anthony is fine, Sir. Miss Danvers is bringing him back from the workshop now and I should make sure to get something edible into him before he passes out. If you’ll excuse me.” He turned without actually seeing Steve out, and Steve just followed him to the kitchen after a second of hesitation. For all their issues, Tony was still a valuable member of his team and he wouldn’t go before he knew he was alright.

He expected Jarvis to be preparing dinner of some kind, but all he did was put on a kettle before going through the contents of a cabinet. After a few moments, he looked over his shoulder at Steve. “If it would not be too much trouble, could you please call Miss Potts and ask her to clear Master Anthony’s schedule for the next couple of hours?” he asked, apparently having already accepted that Steve wasn’t going anywhere.

Steve nodded, though he felt decidedly uncomfortable as he walked over to the video phone Jarvis had used before and pressed the button he had seen him press, the one with the number one on it. After no more than two seconds, the screen came to life and the face of Pepper Potts appeared.

She looked at him and gaped for a moment. Steve felt even more uncomfortable and tried not to nervously shift his feet.

“Hey,” he said, feeling slightly silly. “Miss Potts. It’s been a while.” Was it even okay to call her Miss Potts? Jarvis had called her that, so it had to be, but Steve kept thinking that she used to be Mrs. Hogan until just a few months ago. He had heard what had happened to her husband; an unfortunate victim of his association with Tony Stark. He’d been beaten into a coma by the Spymaster, it had been on the news – though it wasn’t until much later that Steve had learned, in passing, that Happy Hogan had died not long after, rather suddenly or so it seemed. Rumor had it some other enemy of Tony’s had come to finish the job, considering that contrary to public belief, life support equipment rarely failed so completely out of the blue. Steve wondered how Pepper felt about that – about still working for Tony when he was responsible for that tragedy.

But then, Pepper Potts was hardly unqualified, nor was she lacking experience or determination. She could have found another well-paying job elsewhere if she had wanted to, and Steve knew that Tony would have let her go. She obviously had her reasons for staying.

And she probably also had her reasons for smiling at him like that after she got over her initial shock. The grin lit up her entire face, smoothing out the stressed lines and making her look much younger, almost like a teenager. “Steve,” she greeted him. “Call me Pepper. I mean, wow. You’re back. I mean, of course you are, I knew you were, it’s just. It’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, slightly embarrassed, as he always was when someone treated his return like the best thing that had happened to this planet in a century. With his friends, he could understand, but Pepper Potts he only knew through her acquaintance with Tony, from better times. Besides, she had fought for registration and against him, though of course that might have been simply because she had been following Tony’s lead.

Then again, judging by all he knew about this woman, she wasn’t one to do anything she believed was wrong just because Tony asked her to.

“So you were the mystery visitor Tony had,” Pepper concluded. “Remind me to snap at Jarvis for not telling me earlier.”

Steve briefly turned around to glance at Jarvis stirring something into a cub of steaming hot water as if he hadn’t heard anything, which doubtlessly he had. He shrugged vaguely. “I, uh, I just meant to tell you that Stark… that Tony will be unavailable for a few hours, so you should clear his schedule.” He thought of the project Tony was working on, the engine that had to be done by Wednesday. “I don’t know how long the delay will be,” he added, feeling oddly afraid that Pepper’s fury would now rain down on him due to him being the nearest available victim. Kill the messenger and all that.

“Really? I’m glad.”

“…You are?” That was hardly the reaction Steve had expected, but Pepper did took genuinely… relieved, for lack of a better word.

“I already planned for this in his schedule. There are no meetings this week and the presentation for the coast guard was moved one day back. Be sure to tell him that, else he’ll just crawl out of bed and back to work before he’s even awake.”

Steve was probably supposed to say something now, but he was still trying to keep up with Pepper’s words. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Her expression turned warm for a second as she regarded him. “I’m glad you are back, Steve,” she told him again. “You have no idea how much. Good luck.”

With that, she cut the connection and Steve was left feeling slightly stunned. “That didn’t go as I expected,” he admitted.

“Yes, that became apparent from your reaction.” Jarvis’ commented dryly, slowly stirring the contents of the cub he was holding and keeping an eye on the elevator through the open door. “Though Miss Potts does have that effect on people, if rarely by being _less_ irritated than expected.”

“So, when exactly did Tony taking a forced break become a cause for celebration?” Steve asked warily, feeling the weight of Jarvis’ calm gaze rest on him.

“Since you died,” the butler told him. “That is when it got worse, anyway. But if you care to recall, Master Anthony has always been somewhat resistant to advise concerning his health. Or common sense.”

Steve snorted. “You could say that.” Like letting his artificial heart run out of power, or going into battle with internal injuries, not to mention his alcoholism… Steve’s mood, distracted by talking to Pepper, darkened again as he remembered all the occasions of Tony being an idiot incapable of taking care of himself. And that wasn’t even counting all the times he’d forgotten to eat or sleep.

He would have to talk to Tony about that, because if he worked himself into the ground until he couldn’t get up anymore, then the team couldn’t count on him to be there if they needed him. Steve could only hope that that conversation would go better than the last one. Maybe it would be best if Steve could bring himself to forget all that had happened between them, good and bad, and just start over again with a blank slate.

Or he could simply accept the way things were, stop mourning the friend Tony used to be to him, and let him go. See him as just another somewhat distant team member who just happened to be there sometimes, and not as…

Steve should probably go now, before he actually met Tony again and the reluctant concern he couldn’t shake off turned back into cold anger and another shouting match.

Before he could make up his mind, the elevator arrived and the door slid open to reveal Tony leaning heavily against the wall with Carol beside him supporting most of his weight. His eyes were closed and sweat was running down his white face and he looked absolutely miserable. Steve’s first instinct was to get over there and help him, but Carol was already doing that, carefully coaxing him away from the wall and sliding an arm around him to keep him upright.

Tony’s head lolled forward for a second before he caught himself and opened his eyes, looking around, clearly disoriented. His eyes widened when he saw Steve and he tried to straighten, push Carol away, as if he was ashamed of being seen this helpless.

Or as if he didn’t want to show weakness in front of an enemy.

Carol was there to catch him when his legs gave out, and with one swift movement she scooped him into her arms as if he weighed nothing. Tony was a few inches taller than her, but carrying him like this was no effort for her inhuman strength, Steve knew. He’d seen her carry him in his armor without breaking into sweat, so there was no reason to hurry over there and relieve her of her burden.

It was hard to do nothing, though, even thought there was nothing he _could_ do that wasn’t being done already. In fact, Steve was the only one present who didn’t even know what exactly was going on, and with painful start he realized that he had no place here. He was an intruder in something he was no part of.

It was strange being so closed out of Tony's life, even if he wouldn't have chosen to get back into it if he could have. They had meant so much to each other for so long.

Now it was Carol and Jarvis taking care of Tony, and that was okay, that was good. They had every right to care for him, especially Jarvis, but once upon a time, Steve would have been the first to be there to catch him if he collapsed or to make sure it didn't happen in the first place, and the fact that no one even expect him to try felt just plain wrong.

On the other hand, the only thing that would have made this even worse was if they had expected him to still care and wondered why he didn't.

So he just stood back and watched with clenched fists as Carol carried Tony through the common room, down a corridor and through the door Jarvis was holding open for her. Steve saw him standing side the doorway for a long moment, looking into the room, before he turned and hurried back towards the kitchen. As he passed Steve, his expression was as unreadable as it used to be on his best British Butler days, and when he made his way back to the room with the cup he had been preparing earlier, Steve followed him.

This time he was the one who stopped in the doorway to watch while Jarvis entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Tony was sprawled over the mattress, beating sluggishly at Carol's hands when she carefully lifted his head so Jarvis could make him drink. He seemed to be mostly out of it, and when Jarvis was satisfied he had drunk enough and he was lying flat on his back again, he made no further attempts to chase them away. He merely closed his eyes, moaning softly, just once.

Within seconds, he was asleep.

“Thank you, Miss Danvers,” Jarvis said quietly. “I’ll take it from here.”

Carol nodded once, stood and brushed past Steve without so much as glancing at him. Steve’s eyes were still fixed on the scene before him, on Jarvis taking a damp cloth and using it to wipe the sweat off Tony’s forehead. He must have done it a hundred times when Tony was sick as a kid – Steve didn’t know all that much about Tony’s childhood, but as far as he could tell, Jarvis had basically raised him. No wonder he was worried now, and no wonder he was taking care of his employer with such practiced ease.

Only, Tony wasn’t supposed to get sick anymore. That was the one good thing that had come out of the Extremis. It had changed him, but at least it had also repaired all the damage accumulated in Tony’s body over the years and made him immune to almost all kinds of illness. (Something which Steve couldn’t resent, no matter how much he disliked Extremis, because with his heart problems and the damage Tony’s alcoholism had done to his liver, his friend’s health had always been almost frighteningly fragile.) And yet here he was, clearly running a fever, clearly sick.

His white shirt was soaked with sweat, and now, finally, Steve realized what had irritated him so about it: He recognized the stains on it. Tony had worn it often when he was working in his lap. Only before, it hadn’t hung off him like it was three sizes too big.

They should probably get him out of the damp clothes, tug him in. Steve stood and thought about offering his help and in the end he turned away and left without a word.

 

-

 

Steve didn’t go far. He made it all the way back to the common room and sat down on the couch, staring blankly ahead. His mind refused to work properly.

Tony should have told him he was sick. As the leader of their team, as the one calling the shots in battle, Steve needed to know about this kind of thing.

Carol should have told him. She’d obviously known. Steve wondered if Tony had been sick already when they were fighting the trans-dimensional bug hive. He had looked pale back then, the few minutes Steve had seen him outside the armor. Someone should definitely have said something.

And Steve should have noticed. As a leader that was his job. And if he let his personal problems with Tony influence his ability to pay attention to such matters, he wasn’t doing a very good job of that.

Carol startled him out of his thoughts when she stepped back into the room. Steve had thought she had left but wasn’t surprised to see that she hadn’t.

The same, apparently, could not be said vice versa.

“You’re still here,” Caraol stated. It sounded slightly wary. Maybe a little accusing. Steve didn’t know what to make of it.

“Of course I am. What is wrong with Stark?”

He didn’t even stumble over his own tongue anymore when he called Tony by his last name.

Carol snorted softly. “Exhaustion. He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” It was a dismissal if he’d ever heard one.

“I worry,” Steve told her, frowning. He leaned back in his seat to make clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. “He’s sick. He’s not supposed to be sick, Extremis should prevent it.”

Carol’s lips twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. Her shoulders sagged and she sat down in the armchair, running a hand through her hair. Suddenly she looked tired. Tired and frustrated. “Extremis prevents illness, for the most part. It doesn’t allow his body to go without rest or food forever. At some point he’s just going to collapse, Extremis or no.”

Steve shook his head. “He’s already looked bad weeks ago. How long has this been going on?”

“Since the war,” Carol told him. “You weren’t there, so you didn’t see. It got worse after you died. There is always too much to do and too little time to do it. No time for sleep, you know? Food is for dummies, the human body is perfectly capable of surviving on coffee alone – at least if you’re Tony Stark.” She was looking in Steve’s direction, but her eyes were focused on something somewhere far beyond him. “Tony’s literally been working himself into the ground. At this point, Extremis might be the only thing keeping him alive.”

“How could it go this far?” Suddenly, Steve was angry, and for once the anger was not directed at Tony. “You all know how he gets when he thinks he’s the only one who can do this, solve that. Why didn’t anybody watch out for him? You’re his friend, Carol, and you just let that happen?”

“Let if happen?” Carol’s grin had nothing friendly in it; it was more a baring of teeth. “We _made_ it happen, Steve! Tony’s wearing himself out because there is always, _always_ something he needs to do. Some crisis that can’t be averted if not for him, some invention that will save lives waiting to be made, and it’s me, and Pepper, and sometimes Rhodey that make sure Tony is always aware of it, of what he has to do.”

It was the last reply Steve had expected. He’d been waiting for an excuse, an explanation for their oversight, for even just a “If Tony wants to do something, there’s no stopping him.” Not this.

“What?” he said. “You... why? Why would you do that? Tony needs people to slow him down, not urge him on. You can see what it’s doing to him, and you _encourage_ it?”

“Yes, we do!” Caol snapped back, her calm gone and replaced by anger. “We’re pushing him and keep pointing him towards always yet another problem that only he can solve, because it’s a choice between either letting him kill himself with work or just letting him kill himself, and why the fuck do you even _care_?”

Steve didn’t reply for a long moment; he just looked at her, stunned. (It wasn’t even that he was surprised by what she had said, a part of him realized. He was just surprised that she had actually said it.)

“Is it really that bad?” he heard his own voice ask.

“God, Steve, how long have you known Tony?”

He shook his head. “I thought I knew him, but then he sold out and turned against his friends, so I guess I never really knew him in the first place.”

It was the wrong thing to say, he knew that even before he finished speaking. But he said it anyway, because somehow his brain had lost all control over his mouth where Tony was concerned, and now Carol’s face was darkening and promising pain.

She had greeted him, when he returned, with a joy that had made him forget for a moment how bitterly they had fought beforehand. Right now, she seemed willing to put him down herself, and Steve was reminded that Carol not only had a temper, she was also stronger than him and could fly.

Not that he actually thought she would attack him. It was just that having Carol Danver’s anger directed at him was always an uncomfortable experience. Especially when it was somewhat justified.

“After everything you went through with – and for – each other, you immediately jumped to the conclusion that Tony betrayed you just for the heck of it without stopping to consider any other options…” Carol shook her head, her face grim. “I think you’re right: You never knew him as well you thought.”

Steve almost winched. “That’s not true,” he defended himself. It wasn’t. Tony had done things that simply weren’t justifiable, and it wasn’t like Steve had never stopped to wonder why he would do that. It was just that he had never come up with a good answer. The man he had once known wouldn’t have. “The Extremis-”

“Extremis had _nothing_ to do with anything!” Carol wasn’t quite yelling, but that was probably mostly because she didn’t want to alert Jarvis or wake Tony. “Is that what you thought? Your friend did something you didn’t agree with so you just took the easiest, most comfortable explanation and stuck with it?”

“What else was I supposed to think? It changed him-"

“No, it didn't! And do you know how I can tell? Because I was with him in the aftermath, and I can tell you that during the whole registration disaster, Tony Stark was the same broken mess he's always been, only worse. But that wasn't the Extremis, that was you!"

“Me? Right, so we reached the point where you blame me for Tony's messes? “

“That is not the goddamn point! I'm trying to tell you that fighting you nearly killed Tony. It was hard on all of us. We all love you, Cap, even when you're an insensitive moron. You think it was easy for us to fight our friends, knowing you'd never forgive us for the things we had to do so your lot could stay up on your moral high horse? That we had parties every night, cackling evilly into our fists?"

“Of course not. I know you-"

“You think it was fun watching Richards fall apart over having to fight his wife?" Carol interrupted him. “That I enjoyed being called a Nazi by people who had once sworn to have my back come hell or high water?" Her voice turned calmer, but had a hard edge to it that hadn't been there before. “We hated leaving Tony alone, you know that? We all feared he might start drinking again, even more than I worried about falling off the wagon myself. During all that, we were the only ones any of us had left, and I was always, _always_ afraid Tony would...” She trailed off, shook her head. “The only reason I knew he’d be still there if we left him unobserved for a moment was that he was too stubborn a bastard not to see it through to the end. If he’d given up, everything – all the sacrifices and bloodshed – would have been for nothing and he’d never have allowed that. But then you died.”

“Carol,” Steve said. He didn’t want to fight with her and he didn’t want to hear this.

But Carol was merciless. “You _died_ , Steve! And we kept going on because we had to, because we couldn’t let it have been for nothing, but then the Skrulls happened, and Osborn, and everyone was pardoned and we got what we wanted. We did it. Everyone had calmed down about superhumans and none of our friends were in jail or on the run anymore and everything returned to normal.” Like Tony, she didn’t look like someone who had triumphed. “But you were still gone. None of the things Tony had to do, or took the blame for, were any easier to bear just because they eventually led to the desired outcome.”

“And they shouldn’t be.” Maybe not the smartest thing to say, but it had to be said, and for once Carol didn’t protest, or get even angrier.

“Tony would be the first to agree with you.”

“And yet he tries to run away from the retribution of his actions.”

“If he’d done that, he wouldn’t be here anymore. As I said, he saw this through to the bitter end. Did you talk to Spiderman yet?”

“Peter?” The question came unexpected. “Of course, we talk all the time. He’s on the team, remember? Was I supposed to talk to him about anything specific?”

“Peter forgave Tony,” Carol told him. “He was the first from your side to even try to comprehend his motivations. Even Thor came around, eventually, and that’s saying something. Things with most others are still tense, but he’s not all on his own anymore. Not everyone hates him now. Things could get back to normal, if he’d let them.”

“Then why doesn’t he?” Not a good idea to get irritated. They were finally having a normal conversation; blaming Tony for sabotaging the team by being too lost in his self-pity to play with them wouldn’t improve the situation.

“Because he hates himself.” Her frown deepened. “And if you don’t know that, you have no right to claim that Extremis changed him in any way, since you never knew him in the first place. Which is even more tragic considering how well he knows you.”

“If he knew me so well, he would have known I would never yield to registration.”

“He knew that.”

So Tony had said. Steve still shook his head. “Listen, Carol, I know Tony’s always had issues-”

“Tony can do what he does because he hates himself so much it only seems right to him if other people do, too,” Carol interrupted him. “But that’s not the point here. The point is that you’re back. You’re back, and we thought it would get better, but it didn’t. If anything, it got worse.”

( _What are you waiting for, Steve? Finish it_ , Tony whispered in his memories and Steve thought that if he had called him Rogers, or Captain, or anything other than his given name, he might have.)

“So you expect me to just forgive and forget everything he’s done? Just like that, so he won’t be depressed anymore?”

“I expect _nothing_ from you, Steve. Neither does Tony. And I think you should go now.”

After all the information Carol had just thrown at him, the sudden stop was unexpected. “This isn’t your house.”

“Neither is it yours. I’m actually here for a reason.”

“So am I.”

“Oh? And that would be?”

“I have to make sure Tony’s okay.”

“No, Steve.” Carol shook her head. “No. Just go, okay? I’ll let you know should he be out of commission for more than a few hours.”

Steve wanted to protest and tell her that this wasn’t about whether or not Tony would be any use in a fight. But he didn’t. Instead, he nodded curtly, got up and walked out. Behind him Carol stayed where she was, her face buried in her hand, looking incredibly tired.

 

-

 

The data feeds from the Extremis swarmed Tony’s mind before he even came fully awake. He was assaulted by a million different lines coming in, losing himself in them for a long moment before his mind managed to untangle itself from all the information and he shut them down one after the other, until only those he needed remained.

The whole process was unconscious, part of waking up. It was something he was used to by now, even though his mind wasn’t supposed to be this open to all the incoming data in its unprotected state. Tony wondered sometimes if there was something broken in his brain, or if all that was just part of his dreams, influenced by spending so much time sorting through data.

His head was hurting, but that was normal; he barely noticed it anymore. His body felt heavy like lead, though, and was lying on something soft, and that was noteworthy after all.

Everything swam before his eyes when he opened them, and in the second before the room stopped turning, he saw Happy sitting on the chair beside the bed, his hands clasped in his lab. The image was gone by the time Tony managed to sit up, and he was grateful for that small mercy.

Even as he sat up, he accessed the images from all the digital cameras within a radius of two miles, then immediately shut out all that were used indoors. It was not his intention to invade anyone’s privacy. It was the streets he had to watch.

The images he received were as unsettling as before, making him nervous like an itch at the back of his head.

Someone had dressed him in a t-shirt and a pair of loose sweatpants, and left a glass of water on the bedside table. Tony drank gratefully before he untangled himself from the sheets, got up and waited for the moment of dizziness to pass.

Steve was standing beside the door, his eyes dull and lifeless and the wounds in his chest no longer bleeding. He didn’t say anything, so Tony swallowed dryly, doing his best to ignore him.

The hallucinations the Extremis send him used to have a purpose. Lately, their only purpose seemed to be to haunt him, and maybe to keep him from leaving the room.

Finding the exit blocked by something he didn’t want to face right now, Tony entered the bathroom instead. Perhaps his hallucination just wanted to tell him that he needed to shower. He could watch the streets while in the shower. And maybe he could actually figure out what was wrong with them.

Steve didn’t seem to know what the problem was either. He didn’t say anything, though he came to stand in front of the bathroom door until Tony shut it in his face.

The shower was too hot on his skin, but somehow he found himself unable to adjust it right. Perhaps he didn’t try. It was hard to care; except that when he got out, he felt almost worse than before, overly hot and still dizzy.

He brushed his teeth. He shaved. Pepper would be proud, although before the next meeting in Bangkok in a few days he should probably do that again. When he was done, Tony checked his work in the mirror, keeping his focus firmly on his chin, the lower half of his face. He wasn’t ready to look himself in the eyes today, not with Steve’s corpse waiting outside the bathroom door and Carol probably waiting to yell at him, even without another broken mirror to get worked up about.

Steve, the real, living Steve, was caught by a security camera as he passed the building it was installed on, and Tony uncurled his fist, breathed a little lighter. Steve was in costume, had probably come straight from some mission. The two people he passed before he disappeared from the camera’s range turned to stare at him and he pretended not to notice, or really didn’t.

He had to be on his way back from the tower to the mansion. Tony recalled that he had been in costume when he’d come to talk to him in his workshop earlier. That hadn’t been a dream, then. (Provided the Steve Tony saw through the camera wasn’t just another figment of his imagination.) Tony should probably have asked what he’d been doing, whom he had fought, but it hadn’t occurred to him.

The whole conversation was a bit of a blur in his memory.

Steve-on-camera passed one of those ass-ugly statues that seemed to have popped up like flies on every corner lately and was gone. Tony dried off his face and was happy to find his bedroom empty when he crossed it to get out into the corridor. The part of his mind that was not checking camera feeds or making sure that he didn’t walk into walls sorted through his eMails and read those that looked important.

Jarvis was sitting in the armchair in the common room, head resting against the high back, a blanket draped over his legs. He was snoring softly and Tony spared a moment to watch him and marvel over the fact that he hadn’t yet managed to drive the old man away completely. Then he took the elevator down to the basement, where his current project was waiting for him.

Fortunately, he had the designs for the engine all ready, only had to put together a prototype. Cap had been right, he had employees who could do that, but there were a few special somethings that he needed to test before he decided whether or not they’d work with the final design, and it was easier to do it himself and adjust the design accordingly than to pass notes back and forth for days. So Tony lost himself in the simple, straightforward act of creating something out of parts that had no meaning on their own, and it was almost three hours later when suddenly it hit him.

“God dammit!” he cursed when he dropped his wrench and hurried for the exit, already calling Cap’s cell phone with the Extremis.

 

-

 

The call came unexpected, while Steve was sitting on his bed, nibbling listlessly at the sandwich he had brought from the kitchen. He was eating in his room because he didn’t want to risk anyone running into him, didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, and then his phone rang and it was _Tony_ , of all people.

Steve answered the call, because it was probably important.

 _“Meet me in the garden,”_ Tony said without preamble. His voice had the slightly odd quality that told Steve he was speaking with his mind rather than his mouth. _“I’ll be there in a minute.”_

“What is it?” Steve was already on his way out of the room.

 _“I’ll show you. This is important.”_ The call ended. Alarmed, Steve made his way outside, waiting beside the statue. Just moments later, the noise of Tony’s repulsor boots going at full speed filled the air until abruptly they stopped and Iron Man dropped to the lawn beside him.

He came over, keeping the armor on and damaging the lawn with deep footprints as it gave way under the weight of the suit. Steve refrained from commenting, watching silently as Tony lifted his hand and, with a second of hesitation, placed it on the grey stone of the statue.

“So what do you think?” he asked in the artificially modulated voice of his suit.

Steve frowned. “About what?”

“This thing here?”

“The _statue_?” he asked incredulously. “When you called me, I thought there was an emergency. And you just want to talk about ugly lawn ornaments?”

There was a strange sound Steve had long since learned to recognize as a chuckle transmitted by the speakers. “So you think it’s ugly, too. That’s something we agree on, at least.”

Steve made himself look at the statue again. In fact, it was the first time he ever really looked at it. It was very tall, towering over them, and massive enough to provide shade that protected him from the glare of the sun. It had a lot of edges and a shape that vaguely reminded Steve of a lot of very large pizza boxed being stacked on top of each other. After a second, he looked away again, rubbing his forehead. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You tell me.”

Steve shrugged. “It's a statue. What do you want me to say here?”

“You never wondered about it?”

“Why should I? It's just there.”

“And it's always been there, right?”

“What? No, just since I got back?” Somehow, it came out sounding like a question. “I mean, I figured...” Steve trailed off, suddenly not sure what he was going to say.

“You figured we just all lost all good taste in art and decided we didn't need this lawn for ball games anymore?” Tony finished for him.

“Well...” If he put it like that... Steve forced himself to look at the statue again and tried to find anything wrong with it. “I hear what you say,” he started. “And I get where you're going with it. But I find it hard to care.” He realized that might have come out wrong the moment he said it, but Tony simply nodded, as if he knew exactly what Steve was talking about.

“Your brain just wants to accept its presence and not think about it,” he offered.

Steve nodded, relieved that he didn't have to put it into words himself. “You feel the same way?”

“Not anymore. Once you get that they are there, it gets easier.”

“They?”

“There are more, Steve. You passed at least two on your way back from the tower.” Tony stopped, as if there was something he had suddenly remembered. “I slept for almost six hours, and yet you were only just on your way back when I woke up. Did something else come up after you left? You were still in costume.”

He sounded honestly concerned, but Steve didn't feel like talking about either his conversation with Carol or the hours he had spend in a secluded corner of the park afterwards, mostly just staring at nothing. “I just had an appointment in the area,” he said, feeling silly for lying like that but also glad because he knew Tony wouldn't ask for details, not anymore.

“And you didn't notice?”

“Notice what?”

Tony sighed. The armor made it sound strange. “What were we just talking about?”

“This statue?”

“Okay, let's go.” The suit started moving, stomping towards the gate to the street.

“Go where?”

“We're taking a walk.”

“Like this?” Steve raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t in costume anymore, but Tony was wearing the armor, which meant he wouldn’t be taking a walk so much as he’d be stomping the walkway into submission. “Do you expect there to be a lot of fighting during that walk?”

Tony – or rather, Iron Man – stared at him for moment, and Steve knew for sure that he hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Maybe “almost six hours” of sleep weren’t quite enough to make up for his level of exhaustion and get his brain fully back online.

It would have been almost adorable if Steve hadn’t been past the point where he could allow himself to find anything Tony did adorable.

The armor cranked open and the individual pieces flew off Tony’s body to reassemble in a vaguely rectangular shape on the lawn. What they revealed was unkempt hair, a too-big t-shirt and loose sweatpants, and old, beaten trainers on his feet, half covered by the overly long pants. Which wasn’t adorable at all.

“Better?” Tony asked, and his voice, unhidden by the armor’s interface, sounded disgruntled.

Steve tried his hardest not to smile. “Not quite. You look like you just fell out of bed. Are you sure you want the whole world to see you in your pajama? There’ll be photos in the magazines, you just know it.” His lips, traitorous bastards that they were, twitched.

Tony continued to stare at him. Then his gaze fell down at his own body, as if for the first time taking in his attire. “Oh,” he said slowly.

Tony was looking down, they were alone. No one could possibly have seen the grin that flashed over Steve’s features.

“Is this very urgent?” he asked. “Because if it isn’t, we might find something for you to wear first.”

 

-

 

They did find something to wear. It was a little too long and much too wide, but at least it didn’t look like it was mostly designed to be slept in. Fortunately it was warm outside, so they didn’t need to find a jacket for Tony as well. When they left the grounds, he was wearing sunglasses he had found on one of the shelves in the common room that might or might not belong to Spiderman, and in the untypical attire he wasn’t even instantly recognizable anymore, despite sporting the world’s most famous beard.

Steve himself wasn’t instantly recognizable anyway. He stood out due to his size, true, and his face had been on the news or on the tabloids often enough, even unmasked, but altogether he looked just like a normal guy, with a normal face and a pretty standard haircut, and even if he seemed familiar to those they passed on the street, his identity was usually protected by the fact that despite him having lived in this neighborhood for years, people simply didn’t expect to be looking at Captain America rather than some other very tall, very strong guy.

Some people still looked at him as they walked down the street, but it was fleeting and without recognition. Steve had always enjoyed this kind of anonymity that Tony had had never had even before he became a superhero. Back in the day, after Steve had finally gotten confirmation for his suspicion that it was, in fact, Tony Stark inside the Iron Man armor, he had sometimes felt hurt, even betrayed that his friend had never trusted him with this secret until it was revealed by someone else.  But in moments like this, when they walked past clouds of people without anyone approaching Tony, or calling him a murderer and a war-profiteer, or even just staring at him or taking pictures, he could understand why Tony had craved the kind of distance from his public persona the armor had offered him.

Especially after Steve had walked down the street in his uniform earlier that day, something he usually avoided whenever it wasn’t necessary.

The thing was, Tony had often done things that had hurt or appalled Steve, but he had always found it easy to forgive him once he had gotten behind the reasons why Tony did what he did.

Or maybe that had been sheer force of habit. Walking beside Tony like this felt normal, dangerously normal. Like he could easily forget how much things had changed, if only for a moment – and he didn’t _want_ either of them to forget that.

Fortunately, Tony had not forgotten, it seemed. He didn’t try to chat with Steve as he would have before, didn’t say anything that wasn’t necessary, and rather than walking right beside Steve, he walked half a step ahead, leading the way. Eventually they came to stand at the corner of a block, next to a small café that Steve knew Wanda used to like.

“So,” Tony said. “Here we are.”

“Okay.” Steve looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What is it I’m supposed to see here?”

There was a moment of silence before Tony pointed at the Statue right beside Steve. “How about that?”

Steve looked. It was a statue, much like the one on their lawn. A little shorter, maybe, and with not quite as many edges, but essentially the same. He looked at it and very nearly shrugged and said ‘So what?’

“Damn,” he said instead. “Whoever created these is good.”

Tony nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Thousands of people pass them every day and no one notices them unless you bang their heads right into them. Once you know what to look for, you notice them everywhere.”

“No, it’s worse,” Steve told him. “Even though I know they are there and that there’s something wrong with them, I want to ignore them. Looking at them is easy. Paying attention to them is damn hard. Even right now, a part of me thinks that this is all a waste of time and wonders why we are here. A pretty big part of me, in fact.” He shook his head to clear it, but it didn’t help. “I can feel it getting right into my brain and I _just don’t care_.” He should have been more alarmed by this than he was. “How come you noticed them in the first place when no one else did?”

Tony shrugged. “I just did. Something was nagging me for days but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then eventually it clicked, and since then I can’t get them _off_ my mind. They are very, very present to me. In fact, I’m just waiting for them to come alive and attack everyone.”

“You would,” Steve muttered. Louder, he said, “What’s different for you?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s probably because I’m watching the streets through the camera feeds all the time, so I keep looking at them.”

“I’m looking at one right now, I know what’s happening, and I still can’t seem to care,” Steve pointed out. “Actually, if I were to go back to the mansion now, I’d probably go back to my bedroom to finish my lunch without telling anyone about this:” He shuddered. “It’s pretty creepy, to be honest. What’s even worse is that I should find it creepy and I just don’t.”

“Looks like you’ll need me to remind you,” Tony said after a second of silence. “First we need to tell everyone else about them. And then we’ll figure out what they are, and how to get rid of them.

 

-

 

At least Steve managed to call the currently active team back to the mansion for a meeting, which was really something to be proud of, he thought sarcastically even as he felt silly for assembling them for something this unimportant. “What if we're calling them away from something urgent?” he grumbled on the way back.

“If they were in the middle of a fight, they would have told you,” Tony said patiently.

“There are other important things that don’t involve fighting. I could have called them out of an important meeting, or from a training. And they didn’t complain because they thought this was actually urgent.”

Tony sighed. “I think you’d better let me do the talking during this one.”

That, at least, was a good idea for once. It was hard to give a rousing speech to the team if Steve couldn't bring himself to care about the problem.

They had never walked very far from the mansion and made it back before most of the others got there. Only Jessica Drew, Peter and Sam were present, and Steve found himself ridiculously relieved that he didn't have to face Carol so soon after their conversation in the tower.

Things were bad enough, it turned out, facing just these three. Sam raised his eyebrows when they entered the room, and Peter made wide eyes, and Jess smirked and asked, “Is there anything you want to tell us?”

“Of course,” Steve confirmed, feeling slightly confused. “We wouldn't have called you otherwise. Tony's going to explain everything as soon as the others get here. He's the one who noted what's happening in the first place.”

“To be honest, we don't know yet what's happening,” Tony amended. “Just that something is.”

“I think the question had more to do with your private life,” Sam pointed out, looking at Steve. “Unless I'm the only one who's wondering why Stark is wearing your clothes.”

Steve stared at him, probably looking dumb. “How do you know those are _my_ clothes?”

“Well, they certainly aren’t mine,” Jessica remarked, giving Steve a mental image he wasn’t sure he needed.

Peter grimaced, as if his mind was providing the same image. Knowing Peter, it probably did. “They are too big to be mine,” he said somewhat hastily. “And he could wear this shirt as a dress, but if it was Luke's, he could turn it into a tent and live in it.”

“‘ _He_ ’ is standing right here,” Tony pointed out sourly.

“And he's looking utterly adorable,” Jan's voice came from the doorway. She entered the room, Hank in tow. “Hey, Tony. Why are you wearing Steve's clothes?”

“Why do you think those are mine?” Steve tried again. “Tony is usually capable of dressing himself,” he added with a meaningful look at Tony that Tony valiantly ignored.

Jan gave Steve a pitying look that was impossible to ignore. “Oh please. Blue shirt with a star on the chest? That screams ‘Captain America‘ even more than the oversized jeans.” Her smile was slightly evil. “And besides, you were wearing that shirt yesterday.”

All day, including their unfortunate meeting in the morning, Tony had rarely ever looked Steve in the eyes. Now he did, and the look he threw him was dripping indignation. “You gave me your dirty laundry?”

Peter cracked up. There was no other word for it. “He's wearing your used clothes. Straight off the bedroom floor. Oh, that's too good. Wait till I tell MJ...” He trailed off, suddenly turning somber. “But this isn't what it looks like, right? I mean, there is a perfectly good reason for Stark to be wearing your shirt that will not make my wife laugh at me and have me take her out to some fancy place, isn't there? Because I so hate losing a bet.”

“...What?” Steve said.

“Could we get back to the point here?” Tony asked. “Carol just landed on the lawn and Logan's almost here, and then we can start what we actually came for. The others won't make it anytime soon so I told them not to bother. Whatever the threat is, it's probably not urgent yet.”

Steve almost asked when exactly Tony had gotten in contact with the team before he remembered the Extremis.

“What threat?” Carol wanted to know as she stepped into the room. She took one look at Tony's attire and raised her eyebrows. “Are congratulations in order?” she asked with a look at Steve that indicated the answer would better be No.

“If you all absolutely have to know,” Steve said, determined to put an end to this, “Tony is wearing my clothes because we were out on the street and he had thought it would be a great idea to show up here in his pajama.”

“It wasn't a pajama,” Tony muttered in the silence that fell over the room as everyone considered whether this bit of information would diminish the amusement they could take out of this situation, or add to it.

“No, it was just the clothes you slept in.”

Peter snickered. “And you know that how exactly?”

Logan chose that moment to come in, and someone was having mercy on Steve because the mutant refrained from making any stupid comment. He just looked at Tony for a moment, grunted dismissively, and crossed his arms before his chest, clearly waiting for the meeting to start. He could probably tell there was nothing amusing going on due to the fact that neither of them smelled of sex. And hopefully he would also tell everyone else. Eventually. When Steve was somewhere far away.

“So what’s this about?” Sam asked, all business. “Your message was unhelpfully vague.”

“It’s about the statues,” Tony told them. Steve was glad it wasn’t him who had to do the explaining here.

“What statues?” Jess wanted to know.

“There’s a statue out on the lawn.”

“So?”

“You’ve seen others like that in the city?”

There was a general round of shrugging and indifferent expressions. “I guess so,” Sam said. “What about them?”

“How long have they been around?”

Everyone exchanged looks, then shrugged again. Steve was reminded vaguely of a group of disinterested pupils. “Couple of weeks?”

“And you don’t think there’s something strange about them just showing up like that?” Tony sounded resigned, as if he already knew the answer. Steve did know the answer, because he didn’t think there was anything strange about that himself.

Everyone shook their heads. “They’re statues,” Carol said, sounding slightly irritated. “They’re just there.”

Tony sighed, and so did Steve. This was going to be a long evening.


	3. Chapter 3

Strangely enough, it was easier for Steve to accept the statues as something that needed attention when he was trying to convince the others of it than it had been when Tony tried to convince him – possibly because he now saw for himself how darn annoying it was to have them constantly dismiss the possibility of a threat. So, explaining was easy (even if convincing was not). But as soon as Steve was thinking about the statues themselves and not just in an abstract way as a problem that needed to be solved, he lost all interest in them. It was pretty hard to keep himself from calling off the meeting several times.

That was annoying, too. And Logan, complaining that this was all a waste of time and walking out on them, that was especially annoying.

Even Tony looked annoyed, though also surprisingly understanding, which might have been because he got the problem in ways Steve didn’t. He also looked very tired, and Steve found himself wondering if they would all forget this meeting and have to start over later should Tony fall asleep during his explanation.

But that wouldn’t happen, because Tony was excellent at staying awake when he shouldn’t be able to. Also, he drank a lot of coffee.

It helped when Steve told the others to not see the statues as anything potentially dangerous but rather as something that was simply there. Together, they tried to recall all the places where they had seen one of them and Tony marked them on a map with such accuracy Steve suspected that he just pulled the information out of his data feeds and was simply letting them think about it to humor them – or possibly to give their brains something to do.

“Okay, here we go,” he said around a yawn when they were done. “Forget the statues. Forget everything we were talking about. Just look at the dots and tell me what you think about them, from a purely theoretical viewpoint.”

So they looked, and Steve saw the expressions of boredom or – more often – frustration on his team’s faces change into thoughtfulness.

He looked as well. “It’s evenly spread out, covering all of Manhattan. What about the rest of the city?” He turned to Tony, who shook his head.

“No more in New York. They seem satisfied with Manhattan, so far, but there are more in other cities. Always just one part, though, very localized. And only big cities. Los Angeles. Atlanta. Berlin. Mexico City. Beijing. London. Tokyo.” He made a vague gesture that indicated he could go on with the list.

“Anyone else who noticed them?” Carol asked.

“I didn’t hear anything. And if there had been, I would have heard. Unless they were restricting their notes to pen and paper.”

So, probably not, then.

“I still don't see why this is imp-”

“Ah!” Tony interrupted Sam. “Don't think. Just look at the map.”

“They are evenly spread out, but standing closer to each other in some areas, forming loose groups.” Hank rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He seemed a little more focused than everyone else, but he also kept looking at his watch as if there was some appointment he needed to keep. For now, he was focused on the issue at hand, though. “There are more of them in well populated areas, always by the roads. In the park, near shopping malls.”

“Where a lot of people pass on foot,” Carol noted.

Tony nodded. “In Tokyo they inhabit Shibuya.”

“The most frequented pedestrian crossing in the world,” Jan mused, understanding what he meant where Steve didn't.

Steve looked at Tony, their resident expert. “Think that means something?”

“Almost certainly.” Tony frowned, looking at the map and probably at something in his head. “Hm.”

“What does ‘Hm’ mean?”

“I don' t know yet. I need to take a closer look at them.”

“At what?” Peter asked.

Tony didn't quite groan, but he did rub his eyes in a rather telling gesture.

“The statues,” Steve provided helpfully, though he didn't quite see the point himself.

“What for?”

“Never mind,” Tony said tiredly. “I'll take care of it. If anything new comes up, I'll let you know.” He left the room without another word and hurried down the stairs. By now, it had gotten dark and through the reflection of the well-lit room in the window glass, Steve could only barely make out Tony’s shape as he moved over the lawn. He did hear the soft noise of the armor assembling around him and saw the gleam of light on the metal as Iron Man moved around the statue before the mansion.

“I just don't get why he's so obsessed with those damn statues,” Jess commented, and Steve found himself shrugging in response.

‘Beats me,’ he almost said. But by now he at least had the sense to recognize that that would have been stupid.

 

-

 

The stone the statues were made of was no stone. Even with the naked eye it didn't stand closer observation; the light didn't reflect off them quite right, the texture was too smooth for even polished stone, and when Tony had touched it with his bare hand earlier, he had felt a coldness that had no place in a stone that had been shone upon by the sun all day. As far as camouflage went, they didn't do much to fool the people of Earth, but then, why should they bother? There was no better camouflage than making the enemy not look.

If they even were enemies of any kind. So far they had done nothing but stand around, and maybe that was all they would ever do. Maybe they were simply there and would one day simply be gone.

Yeah, and maybe Steve would dye his hair pink and he and Tony were still friends.

Once Tony employed the sensors of his suit for observation, it was easy to see that the statues were made of no natural material at all, but of billions upon billions of nanites. The thought alone was dazzling – if these statures were to dissolve into nanite dust, and if those nanites were programmed to do harm, they could kill all of mankind within a couple of minutes and there was nothing anyone would be able to do about it.

So, definitely a threat, then. Even if, so far, a theoretical one.

Containing them would be a first step to be taken. Tony already foresaw trouble with that, though: if even the Avengers, superheroes with experience in all things weird and unusual, had a hard time even paying attention to these things, let alone see them as something that required any kind of action, it would be difficult to convince people all over the world to have them removed. Not to mention that any company tasked with transporting them away would probably turn away and go home before they could even start. And Tony couldn’t do it all himself without causing an international incident, most likely.

Not to mention that taking any kind of action against them might trigger their programmed desire to dissolve into nanite dust and kill all of mankind.

Still, something had to be done. If Tony couldn’t find a way to get rid of them, he had to at least find a way to make them harmless. The nanites he saw looked harmless enough at the moment, but he didn’t think for one second that they would remain so in the long run. And only then, when he touched them with his armored hand and a portion of the statue just broke off, came apart, and drifted around his hand in a cloud of small grey particles the size if very fine sand, did Tony realize that while these were tiny little machines, he could not sense them with the Extremis, let alone access them in any way.

That should have been the first thing he thought of. Apparently, he wasn’t as immune to their influence as he had hoped.

He lifted his hand and the particles followed it, invisible in the darkness for anything but his armor’s night view. Tony’s mind reached out and found a void. Fascinated, he watched them dance lazily over his palm, doing nothing else.

A small compartment in the arm of his armor opened and it wasn’t hard (in fact, it was suspiciously easy) to shove the swarm of nanites into it with his other hand. “You’re coming with me,” Tony muttered as the compartment closed.

It was going to be another long night, but then, those he liked best.

 

-

 

After the meeting, the rest of the Avengers filtered out quickly, not really seeing the point in staying. Hank was gone even before Tony’s repulsor boots fired up outside the window and he took off to places unknown, most likely the tower. Peter was next, saying something about MJ and a performance he’d promised to watch. Only Carol stayed for a moment, lingering in the doorway and looking at Steve as if undecided whether it was time to continue their conversation, or maybe start a new, equally uncomfortable one. Eventually, fortunately, she decided against it and followed Spiderwoman out of the mansion. Steve heard their voices outside as they walked off the grounds together, but didn’t pay attention to what they were saying.

Steve stayed behind, sitting at the table and staring at nothing. His stomach growled. He suddenly remembered the half eaten sandwich in his room, which by now had to be soggy and disgusting and needed to be thrown out.

Before Tony had called him, he had also been sitting around staring at nothing, so altogether there had been little progress.

Food was a necessity now. Steve could go for a long time without, but it was never fun. Even when he had no appetite, his enhanced metabolism needed a lot of sustenance. As he walked back to his room to throw out the leftover food and open the window to get the smell out, he actually contemplated the disgusting sandwich, which was disgusting, but not actually poisonous. At least it would spare him having to go out.

But no, he wasn’t that desperate. Not as long as the phones were working and he could order take out.

Jan ambushed him in the kitchen, just when the lid of the waste bin snapped shut. Steve jerked, startled; he had thought she’d left with Hank, although looking back, he didn’t know what made him assume that. Habit, possibly.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look tired.”

“Hungry, mostly.” Steve didn’t think he looked tired. At last not by the standards set by Tony Stark. “It was a long day.”

“And a long meeting.”

“Do you even remember what we were talking about?”

“I remember.” Jan frowned at the refrigerator, which was better than her frowning at Steve. “That is not the problem. I remember every word and it all makes sense, but I think it was a waste of time and completely irrelevant. And the fact that I know how wrong that is doesn’t change anything about it.”

“I know, I feel the same way. I don’t know what’s worse: being manipulated, or knowing that I’m being manipulated and not caring.” Steve took a deep breath, his shoulders slumping. Maybe he was tired after all. “Tony seems to be the only one immune to it.”

Jan smiled. It looked a little wicket. “I’m glad you finally talked to him,” she said, winking at him, and there was something genuinely relieved and happy underneath her smile. Steve just nodded, not having the heart to tell her that his attempt to talk to Tony had just made everything even worse.

 

-

 

Steve ended up ordering dinner for both of them and they ate in the living room, Steve picking his lo mein right out of the box while Jan had her salad and chicken spread over a plate. They didn’t talk much but watched the news on tv, and afterwards a report on modern fashion which happened to be on. They let it run because Jan liked to mock fashion shows. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable; in fact, it was the most normal Steve had felt since long before he died.

No, that wasn’t true. The most normal he had felt was a few hours ago, when everyone was mocking him and Tony and it had seemed as if time had been turned back to better days. Steve had had to ruin the moment by reminding himself that it never would.

After the show, Jan told Steve good night and left. She had her own place nearby, and only after she was gone did Steve realize that he didn’t know if she was living there with Hank right now or not. They had come together and left separately, and a lot might have happened in the months he was... gone.

Dead. God, he didn’t even like to think about it. He’d been dead, a corpse, a lifeless body rotting in the ground. The thought made him shudder. There it was a lot easier to sit among the empty take out boxes and speculate on the status of his friends’ relationship.

With Jan gone and the tv turned off, the mansion seemed big and empty. Jessica Drew and Carol were the only others currently living in it, and at least in Carol’s case it was more of a temporary arrangement of convenience. Both were still out, even though it was close to midnight, and the silence was almost oppressive, reminding Steve oddly of the darkness inside the tunnels underneath the city. When he picked up the boxes, threw them away, and cleaned the dishes, every noise seemed unnaturally loud. At this time of night, empty but for him, the mansion felt like a tomb.

He missed Jarvis and his steady, reliable presence.

Briefly, he thought about working out in the gym as he usually did, just to wear himself out, but tonight he felt tired enough already, and strangely drained, so he went straight to bed. The sheets were crisp and clean and cool around him, empty. Despite his exhaustion, sleep was a long time coming, and when it did, so did the nightmares.

 

-

 

The nanites were well behaved, Tony had to give them that. They drifted out when he opened the compartment in his armor inside a sealed container and hovered around inside, not trying to do anything. They kept their formation of clustering together in little groups the size of sand grains, when the individual pieces would be too small to make out with the naked eye. Even when Tony drew back his arm through the force field that would let through his armor but nothing else, the nanites didn’t try to follow. It was as if they were waiting for something.

Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what. On the other hand, he wanted to find out everything he could about these little buggers. First of all, he needed to find out how they worked, why the Extremis couldn’t access them, and why he’d never even considered trying that before it jumped him in the face.

It was clear from that intellectual failure that he was influenced by what he called, in the privacy of his mind, their “Ignore me, I’m not important” field, if not as strongly as the others. Knowing that probably wouldn’t help much, considering that he couldn’t know what he didn’t think of or overlooked before he thought of it. So Tony started recording everything he did, and he also did something he hadn’t done in years: he took out paper and a pen and started noting down everything he tried and observed in regard to the nanites in a handwritten journal. If he read that later, away from the nanites, he might be able to find the errors and gabs in his thought process. The words blurred before his eyes and his hands were shaking every so slightly, but he had worked under worse conditions.

It was still slightly eerie to work with something he knew might get into his brain without him even noticing. On the other hand, if there was anything Tony liked, it was a challenge. Especially if it kept his mind busy and gave him an excuse not to sleep.

 

-

 

It had been Sharon who’d shot Steve. He knew that, because she had told him, not because he remembered. Everything beyond the pain of the first bullet ripping through him was a blur, and he was grateful that at least he didn’t have to live with the memory of dying.

There was an oxymoron in there somewhere, he thought. Hank McCoy would probably appreciate it.

That day weeks ago, when Sharon had come to see him just after he’d arrived at the mansion, had been the last time he’d seen her. She was on a mission somewhere, and Steve knew she had asked for it to have an excuse to be very far from him. He understood. It didn’t even hurt.

Things between them were over, and he wasn’t sure if they could ever go back to any sort of intimate relationship. But he still cared for her, still loved her in some way, and if being near him hurt her, he wouldn’t ask her to stay. He just wished he could make her understand that he didn’t blame her.

The problem was that she blamed herself. She didn’t say so, but Steve could tell from the way she looked at him, and if she was anything like Tony, she’d never get over that.

But no, Sharon wasn’t like Tony at all. She just needed to get her head cleared and move past this, and if she wanted to do that on another continent, who was Steve to stop her?

On the other hand, he was almost glad she wasn’t around, simply because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to deal with the emotional complications. Things were complicated enough right now. And he’d had nightmares, almost every night since coming back, of her shooting him. Of dying, chocking on his own blood. He might not have any conscious memories of it, but his subconscious more than made up for that.

This night, though, he hadn’t dreamt of pain and blood and the oddly distracting discomfort of the courthouse steps digging into his rips. This time he had dreamt of his shield raised over Tony’s prone body and Tony’s rough whisper, urging him on.

Something falling over in the kitchen and Jess’ and Carol’s far too loud whispers woke him around three a.m., just before he could bring the shield down (somehow he knew that in this dream, he would have), and he didn’t go back to sleep.

Carol and Jessica were gone by the time Steve made it to the kitchen, and he made an effort to be quiet. Not because he didn't want to wake them - he could hear them talking in Jessica's room - but because he didn't feel like dealing with anyone.

After he had woken from the ice and was plagued by nightmares about falling and Bucky and cold, he used to seek out company, more often than not finding it in Iron Man or Tony Stark, the only people regularly awake at that time of night. Now he was awake and had no idea what to do with himself. The glass of milk he drank did nothing to calm his shaken nerves.

Mostly, he just felt alone.

Tony was probably awake, too, even though he shouldn't be. He was exhausted and - there was no denying it - sick, but he was also on a mission to figure out the damn statues, and he wouldn't rest until he had done that. Steve sighed. He might be literally incapable of caring about the statues, but he wished that there was something for him to do. Something useful. He thought about working out, but right now, he needed something that would require for him to use his mind as well as his body.

Now he was no longer talking about the statues, or looking at them, or forced to confront them in any way, the whole problem actually did seem like one. There was something alien in their city that could ensure no one cared it was there and gathered in places where a lot of people passed on foot – unprotected and without means of getting away quickly. Yes, that did sound like something they needed to take care of. And if Tony was doing just that, Steve needed to be informed about his progress.

He could have called, but there was a very small chance that Tony was actually asleep at this time of night, be it voluntarily or because he’d collapsed again, and in that case Steve didn’t want to wake him. He’d been thinking about going for a run anyway, so he might as well run over to the tower and check on Tony’s work himself.

It was almost five in the morning by the time Steve made it to Stark Tower, but some of the windows were lit anyway. Cleaning staff, or people pulling all-nighters, or simply someone having forgotten to turn off the lights – Steve was sure it was a little bit of all of that. The lights in the penthouse at the top were off, but that didn’t mean anything. If Tony was indeed awake, he was almost certainly in his workshop in the sub-basement.

The doorman in the lobby didn’t stop Steve and the private elevator opened to him, as always. Upstairs, dim lights illuminated the place for him just enough not to run into walls, but this time, Jarvis didn’t come to greet him. Steve wasn’t surprised; after all, sensible people were asleep at this time, not working overtime guarding an empty apartment.

As he snuck through the penthouse, he almost felt like a burglar, which was odd, considering how much time he had spend in this place, and that even through their civil war, Tony had never changed the door codes to lock him out. Still he felt guilty, having entered without the knowledge or permission of either Tony or Jarvis, and he kept hoping that he wouldn’t run into anyone and have to explain himself, like a teenager sneaking in well after curfew.

He really just wanted to make sure that Tony wasn’t sleeping peacefully in his bed before he rode the elevator all the way down again. But the bed was empty and untouched, and it wasn’t until Steve was waiting for the elevator that would bring him down to the workshop that it occurred to him he could just as well have walked in on Tony in bed with someone else.

Unlikely, at this point. There just was no time for Tony to indulge like that, but then, everyone needed to relax at some point, and really, what was Steve thinking here? He felt himself coloring just at the thought and almost decided that checking on Tony’s work could just as well wait until morning.

What kept him from leaving was mostly the fact that if he did, he would have broken in here just to peer into Tony’s bedroom, and that was a little too creepy for him to live with.

He found Tony in the lab a few minutes later and was overcome by a sense of deja-vu. But this time, Tony wasn’t working on some mechanical monstrosity hanging from the ceiling but sitting slumped before a computer, his forehead resting in his hands and his eyes staring blindly ahead, in a way that said he was either deep in thought or focused on some data visible only in his own head.

There were handwritten notes spread over the desk, and a cup of coffee was standing beside the screen. It wasn’t steaming, had probably gone cold long ago, but as Steve entered, Tony reached for it anyway and gulped down the rest of its contents. He didn’t even grimace.

He was still wearing Steve’s clothes. Steve suppressed a sigh. He’d liked that shirt, and chances were it was full of oil stains now.

“Hey Tony,” he said as he walked over to the desk. “Did you ruin my shirt?”

Tony flinched; apparently he hadn’t noticed Steve at all, despite him doing nothing to hide his presence. Even after Steve startled him it took him a few seconds to focus on the here and now. In the light of the computer screen, his eyes seemed an almost unnatural shade of blue.

“Huh?” he asked.

“Hey,” Steve said again. This conversation was already going better than the last one. There was no yelling yet. “Anything those statues told you so far?” Maybe he shouldn’t mention the statues, he immediately realized, because the moment he did, he was wondering what the hell he was doing here.

“Actually, yes. Well, no.” Tony sat up a little straighter, and pointed at a transparent case in a well illuminated spot on another table, where a few grains of grey sand seemed to be floating in the air. “I don’t have any answers yet, but at least I know what questions to ask. Turns out, the statues are made of nanites, but the Extremis can’t access them, so I’m doing all the tests with the external computers but they are just so slow.” He sounded at the same time frustrated and excited and was rambling the way he did when he was extremely exhausted. His eyes were unnaturally bright, and for a split second Steve wondered if he was drunk.

Even after everything he felt almost ashamed for thinking that. Also, he was again focusing on the wrong thing. “You can’t access them with Extremis? Is there some sort of firewall keeping you out?”

“No idea. There might be, but so far it’s not needed. Extremis can’t even _find_ them. It’s like they aren’t there.” Tony looked thoughtful for a second, frowning deeply. Then he got off the chair, took a step and nearly fell when his legs gave out. Steve was there just in time to steady him.

It was the fist time he actually touched Tony since coming back. The skin of Tony’s bare arms under his hands was dry and far too warm, and Steve’s hands, large though they were, shouldn’t have been able to circle them like they did. Tony had lost a lot of weight lately, the long, slender muscles of his arms mostly gone. He had always been more on the lean side, but now it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t taking care even of his most basic needs.

His physical decline was obvious, actually, just from looking at him. And Steve had noticed before, he just hadn’t really taken in the information his eyes were giving him. In a way, it was a lot like what the statues were doing to him, except that in this case he didn’t have an excuse.

Tony moved on as if it hadn’t happened, only sparing Steve a barely notable look of confusion as he straightened himself and walked over to the case with the nanites. He pressed his hand against the surface and the grey particles moved towards it, gathering before the centre of his palm.

“Hm,” Tony said. He took his hand away and the nanites stayed where they were. “Place your hand there, Cap,” he ordered, pointing to the opposite side of the case.

Steve did as he was told. The nanites didn’t do anything. Only when Tony placed his hand beside Steve’s, their fingers touching ever so slightly, did they come drifting over in a slow, lazy line.

“They like you better than me,” Steve observed.

“Well, I’m a very likable person.”

That could have been argued, but for the sake of peace, Steve didn’t. Tony didn’t sound like he meant it, anyway. Mostly he sounded distracted by the problem before him. Steve straightened and covered his mouth with his had as he yawned. A little more sleep would have been nice.

Apparently, yawning was still infectious, since Tony did, too. Then he scratched the back of his head and closed his eyes for a second. Steve poised himself to catch him again should his body choose this moment to remember that there was a limit to what it was willing to take, but Tony just took a deep and shaky breath and turned to Steve.

“I need to get ready.”

“For what?”

Tony rubbed his eyes. “I have a business meeting at seven.”

“At seven? That seems a little early for a business meeting.”

“Benefits of being the boss and in charge of the schedule. It’s the earliest I could make it without the employees crucifying me.”

“So, no important business partners from overseas, then?”

“No, just some guys from R&D who will have to finish this prototype for me.” Tony pointed to the engine still hanging under the ceiling. “And Pepper will have to go to Beijing in my place. She’ll love that.” His tone was so flat and emotionless that for the life of him Steve couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic there or if Pepper would really love it.

Probably not. Not that Steve assumed that she had anything against Beijing in general, but she was pretty busy, as far as he could tell, and at trip like that took time.

“Any particular reason why you can't go yourself?”

Tony grimaced. “Yes, Cap. I need to figure out the nanites and keep them for potentially killing all life on Earth.”

Right. That. “This is getting embarrassing,” Steve admitted, rubbing the back of his head. Still not worrisome, but embarrassing. There, progress.

Of a kind.

“Never mind. Not your fault.” Tony entered the elevator and Steve followed automatically, trying to concentrate on the matter at hand through the ever present layer of mind numbing indifference.

“What was that about killer nanites wiping out mankind?”

“I don't know. I don't know yet what they can or will do. Best ignore everything I say about them.”

“Don't worry. It's not as if I had any other choice.”

 

-

 

Tony got off the elevator one floor beneath the penthouse, and Steve just followed him out without thinking, stepping into the short corridor that led to Tony's office. He hadn't been here for a long time, but the office looked just as it always had: large, modern, and surprisingly orderly compared to the clutter and practical disorder of Tony's various workshops. There was an air of cleanliness about it now that indicated Tony hadn't been in here for a while.

Compared to the workshop, the lights here were almost painfully bright and allowed Steve to see that his shirt had miraculously lived through the workshop unstained, probably because Tony had only worked with computers this time. Tony's first stop was the closet near the door, from which he took one of those bags that were supposed to keep clothes from getting dusty. He disappeared into the adjoining bathroom with it, and while he was gone, Steve had time to question his own presence here – he'd already done what he came for, after all, and had had no reason to follow Tony to the office. But it would have been impolite, at the very least, to just leave without a word while Tony was in the bathroom.

Tony wasn't gone for long. He emerged after a minute or two dressed in a neat business suit and shirt. Steve didn't know why Tony would have a spare suit stored in his office but didn't question it; as far as he knew, it was just something businessmen did.

The suit made Tony look more like the man Steve knew, but the black fabric also underlined how pale he was. In the bright light from the ceiling lamps, his skin looked pallid and the circles underneath his eyes could have been painted in ink. The suit certainly had been tailored especially for him, but now it was just that little bit too wide, making him look smaller than he was.

In his hands, Tony carried Steve's clothes, neatly folded. Steve took them, feeling oddly awkward. The belt they had used to keep his jeans from falling off Tony's too narrow hips was missing, he noticed.

Suddenly it occurred to him that Tony might think Steve had only dropped in to get his clothes back, and that thought was so ridiculous that Steve nearly laughed. It probably would have sounded slightly hysterical.

“I, uh,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Tony blinked at him, a little slowly. Outside the window, it was still completely dark, no sign of dawn yet. It didn’t even feel like very early morning. It felt like night.

Steve wasn’t angry at Tony right now. He could look at him and be a little concerned, in the way he was concerned about a team mate who might not be at the top of his game, and he didn’t feel like yelling at him. It was a good moment for a talk. They actually might make it through a conversation without anyone getting punched.

“That didn’t go well last time,” Tony reminded him. He looked so tired. He probably didn’t have the strength for a fight.

One moment to the next, Steve suddenly found it hard to look at him after all. This felt far too normal. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this, after everything. There were supposed to be scars.

And there were. The more he settled into the relaxed familiarity he instinctively felt around his old, former friend, the angrier he got at himself for falling into this. If he took the easy way and just pretended nothing had happened, Tony would get away too lightly. And so would Steve. No lessons learned. Betrayal wasn’t supposed to be this easy.

“I didn’t come to fight. I just think we need to make some things clear.”

“Well, then.” Tony looked a little wary now. He glanced at the clock on the wall – purely for show, since he could easily check the time with his mind. “I’ve got to prepare some things for the meeting, but since you’re here already...” He trailed off, forcefully unconcerned, on the defensive. Steve didn’t know what he was expecting, but if he’d feared that Tony might think Steve had forgiven him over the truce that had been this day... well, he obviously didn’t need to worry about that.

So it couldn’t have come as a surprise when Steve said, “This isn’t going to work.”

Tony didn’t say anything in return, but he leaned back against the desk, his shoulders just a little to high, a little too tense. Bracing himself. His face was blank.

“We can’t act as if nothing has happened,” Steve continued, his voice hard, but neutral. “Because it happened, and it can’t be undone. It’s going to stand between us and nothing will change that.” He didn’t say ‘You betrayed me’, nor did he point out that Tony never said he was sorry, so obviously he wasn’t. This wasn’t the time for that. It would only bring up their tempers. “So, there are new boundaries now. We can’t go back to what we were before, but we also can’t allow our personal issues to affect the team.”

“You want me off the team.” Tony nodded slowly, as if he thought that made sense.

“What? No.” Steve shook his head. Once again, Tony was jumping to conclusions. “I never said anything about that. You’re brilliant and one of our heavy hitters. We need you.”

“You do,” Tony agreed. “Especially now.”

“But I want you to keep your distance,” Steve told him. “Especially from me. I can’t tell you not to be friends with the others if they will have you, but I can’t... I can’t have you near me unless it’s necessary. A team won’t work without trust, and I can’t trust you anymore.”

“And yet I’m still to help you in a fight?” Tony raised his eyebrows, looking infuriatingly unaffected. “How is that supposed to work?”

“I know you have my back in a fight. If there is one thing I know, it’s that. But being a team goes beyond working together in the field, and when it comes to that, I can’t and won’t rely on you anymore. I don’t know when you’ll next get some idea that will screw us all over, when you’ll start keeping secrets from us again, if you aren’t already.” Saying this was surprisingly hard. Yelling it in anger would have been easier. It didn’t help that what he was trying to say was hard to put into words. “I used to consider you family, Tony,” he tried. “I don’t anymore. If there is a problem that doesn’t require my attention as Captain America, or as leader of the Avengers, please take it to someone else from now on.”

Tony looked at him. The corners of his lips turned up into a sardonic smile. “Very well, then,” he said with a shrug. “You know what I’m working on, you know where to find me. If you decide you need more information on it, call me.” He pushed himself off the desk and walked around it, sitting down on the chair and opening his laptop. “If that’s all you came here for in the middle of the night, I’d like to get back to my other job now, and you, I’m sure, would like to get away from me.” He actually smiled. He had the gall to _smile_ at Steve, and not to care, not to be hurt.

It made walking away a hell of a lot easier.

 

-

 

The meeting went well. Tony made it there without touching the bottle of whiskey he kept in the cabinet so he could offer business associates a drink. Smith and Nokoya from R&D were actually able to make sense of what he told them, though Tony knew their final prototype would most likely not work the way he wanted it to and need some tweaking before the presentation. That was fine. It was days away, thanks to Pepper’s thoughtful rescheduling, and he had time for other things before then. Pepper wasn’t excited about Beijing but understood why Tony didn’t have the time.

She even agreed to go through the notes on the nanites, to see if there was anything glaringly obvious that Tony had overlooked due to mind control. He thought it was better to let someone else do that, since he might not be able to see his own mistakes. Originally, he’d meant to ask Steve after he’d shown up, but Pepper was better. Pepper hadn’t yet come in contact with any of this. She was less likely to ignore it.

It took her half an hour to go through everything. By the time she came into Tony’s workshop to hand in the notes, he still hadn’t touched the whiskey. Something to be proud of. There, really. It was the little things.

Or so they said.

“Your handwriting is an abomination,” Pepper told him from far away. “Other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with that, beyond the fact that I don’t understand much of it. Are you going to tell me what’s up with those nanites?”

“No.” Tony’s own voice was far away, too. Funny, that. “More useful this way.”

He wasn’t looking at Pepper, but somehow he could see her rolling her eyes. Her hand touched his shoulder and that, too, felt far away, which was funny since it was _his_ shoulder, and all. “Go to bed, Tony.”

“When I’m done here.” Which would be a while. Tony had no idea how long, but it would be a while. This was a tricky problem. At some point, Tony looked up and Pepper was gone.

The nanites were like empty spaces. Tony could sense them in the electronic hum of this place and the world by their absence; when he tried to reach for them, it was like falling into nothing. His thoughts kept circling around that bottle in his office. About going off to fight some super villain when he was this tired and this slow.

There had to be a way to access those nanites somehow, to communicate with them. Tony could make them react to him, but only on a physical level. They were seeking him out. Hadn’t sought out Steve. Only him. When they all became active, maybe there’d be a way to use that somehow.

Electronic signals did nothing. Tony tried all frequencies with the Extremis, but all it did was give him a headache. He tried infra red and radiation. For all intents and purposes, the nanites weren’t there.

But he could touch them. He could see them. There had to be something that could be done.

He made a diagram of their formations, the way they clustered to be just visible enough. There was a pattern there, and something familiar. He just needed to figure out what it was.

Around noon, he woke up with his head resting on the worktable, one arm dangling jus above the floor and the other hurting from its position above his head. He was covered in sweat, his eyes damp and his lashes sticking together. In his dream, Steve had asked him if it was worth it. Bill Foster had died, Happy had died, Peter hated him, Sue Richards accused him of ruining her marriage, and yet Tony kept saying yes until he was confronted with Steve’s dead body.

“The problem is, of course,” Steve said from his spot beside the table, blood running from his lips, “that everyone is an acceptable sacrifice for you unless losing them actually hurts you. Don’t deny it – you once built a fortune based on that principle.”

Tony could only nod. Steve was right, even if he wasn’t real. He’d always been able to see right through Tony’s pretences. He hadn’t moved one step beyond the war-profiteer he used to be.

“But you’d do it again,” Steve said, and no matter how much Tony hated himself, it was true.

This time, Steve stuck around when Tony entered the bathroom to wash the sweat off his body and hopefully become a little more coherent. Tony could see his outline outside the shower curtain, heard his footsteps following behind him and smelled the faint stench of decay in the enclosed space of the elevator. Extremis was damn thorough with the hallucinations it conjured. But Tony was all alone when he took the bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet in his office and poured it down the drain.

Afterwards, he threw up. But his head was full of nanites and no matter what happened or what he did, they always occupied part of his mind.

Well, there was a thought. What if the nanites had already gotten into everyone’s bloodstream and were influencing their perception that way? Tony had to check that. He needed to test his blood.

He needed to be professional about this.

He needed a lot of coffee and maybe something stronger.

He also needed food. His body wasn’t meant to function without it and his efficiency would go down the drain as well if he didn’t give it some kind of fuel that wasn’t coffee. Too bad that the thought of eating made him feel sick.

Steve’s corpse was still in the elevator when Tony drove down again, but this time he did the sensible thing and actually acted like a corpse: just lying around, not moving, not speaking, not being there ever again. Tony did his best to ignore him.

 

-

 

At some point, Tony emerged from the data stream he had dived into to find a cup of something hot and steaming beside his hand. So Jarvis had been down and was trying to keep him alive. It would really be better for all concerned if Tony’s butler would agree to finally move back to the mansion, but in this moment, Tony was grateful for his presence.

He’d come and gone without Tony even noticing it.

But that was okay. He had a lead. His blood was amazingly nanite-free, but their formation was telling. And the patterns of their movement. And, well, the fact that Tony had checked the camera footage of the past several weeks to pinpoint when exactly they had first made an appearance.

It had been the day the Avengers had fought the interdimensional killer bugs from the tunnels. And there was an idea right there.

 

-

 

Under normal circumstances, Tony would have told Steve of his findings, but in this case, there was no point to that. Steve wouldn’t have cared about anything related to the statues even if he hadn’t given Tony the Captain America equivalent of a restraining order. Tony would have to keep working on this on his own until it was done.

Still, he needed to let someone know what he had found out, just in case something happened to him. Someone who would have a chance to actually make sense of his notes, and maybe would decide to finish the apparently pointless project in honor of Tony’s memory or something like that. So Steve was out for more than one reason. Reed, though. Reed might be able to do something here, maybe even see beyond the mind-altering filter those things had going on.

So he transferred his handwritten notes to a computer file and made sure that it would be send to Reed Richards in the event of Tony’s prolonged unavailability. Maybe he should make sure the handwritten stuff went to Hank. Never hurt to make sure. He just needed to finish this one test, because if it worked he’d know so much–

A hand on his shoulder made him jump. Tony turned around, his hands raised to defend himself, but instead of Cap’s dead face, he saw Carol, and she looked very much alive.

“Are you real?” Tony blurted out, mindlessly, and realized what he said and why that was stupid when her eyes widened ever so slightly.

“I've come to see if you're okay,” Carol said dryly. “But I guess I don't need to ask that now.”

“I'm fine.”

“You're hallucinating again. That isn't fine by any definition of the word.”

Tony scowled at her. “Don't you have anywhere else to be?”

“As coincidence would have it, I don't.”

So she had time to mother hen him. Tony sighed. He knew Carol was worried about him, and it wasn't like he didn't appreciate it, but... well, he didn't. He was a grown man and well capable of making his own decisions and dealing with his own mistakes. He didn't need anyone to watch over him and try to shield him from the consequences of his own actions. Not Carol, not Pepper, not Rhodey. He knew he was a wreck; he hardly needed them to waste their time pointing it out to him. “You need to get a life.”

“I have a life,” Carol told him. “It's you who's spent the last couple of months in this basement whenever you weren't in a conference room or inside the armor. When was the last time you did something just for fun?”

“Being down here is fun,” Tony pointed out. “Besides, not two months ago I was at a party and hooked up with someone. Generally considered fun. You yelled at me.”

“I didn't yell at you, I just yelled because of you.”

“Yeah, that's better.”

“God, Tony.” Carol took a deep, frustrated breath. “I yelled because you have no self-preservation instincts. Because that guy was... Do you even remember anything of what he did to you?”

“I remember what we did _with_ each other all right,” Tony said crisply. It wasn't entirely a lie. “I wasn't drunk, if that's what you're asking.”

“I wasn't asking. I know you weren't. But you were so incredibly out of it, and I still don't know if that was just exhaustion, or–”

“Could we not do this again, please? That was hardly the first time I hooked up with some stranger at a party. Probably wasn't the last time either, and it's also none of your business.” Carol shouldn't even have been there. It had been some social event Tony had had to attend and Carol and Rhodey had been invited for some reason. Tony didn't know why. Maybe it had had something to do with the military. He wasn't even sure anymore. Most of the night was a bit of a blur, though he knew for a fact that he had stayed away from the alcohol, despite his companion’s repeated attempt to place a glass of champagne in his hand. He'd just been very tired and probably terrible company.

“Yeah, but usually those aren't overly handsy assholes who are very tall and blond and blue eyed.”

Oh, so there it was. “Are you so worked up because it was a guy? Because let me tell you, not a first either.”

“I know that, Tony, and that’s not it. It’s the fact that you’re an idiot, and that maybe he–”

“He didn’t.”

“How would you know? You barely remembered your own name when we found you.”

“Some people take that as a sign for very good sex.” Tony tried to grin at her and knew it was a mistake when her expression darkened.

“Okay,” she said. “Be like that. Just know that I will murder the guy if I ever see him again. And I will recognize him, because blond, handsome weight lifters that tall tend to stand out in a crowd. Which brings us to the other thing that’s really wrong about this.”

“Oh, right. I see.” Tony tried to sound flippant and not show how pathetic he was. She was right, of course. That was probably what had attracted him to the guy in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t all that good after all that he didn’t remember most of their encounter. Next best thing and all. “If you’re worried about Cap’s virtue, you don’t need to be. He’s already put the restraining order in place.”

“He... what?” Carol looked confused. Confused and angry. “What did he do? Did he come here?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “He does that. You know, it comes with being the leader of the team I am more or less part of. Wanted to see how the nanites were doing, and no, I did not try to molest him.”

“What exactly did he _say_?”

“What does it matter?” Tony snapped. “You don’t need to worry about me trying anything and you don’t need to worry about _me_ , period, out of some misplaced sense of obligation. I never asked you to play my mother and pamper me or teach me manners or whatever it is you’re doing.”

Carol’s expression darkened even more. “You really, really make people want to punch you, Tony, you know that?”

“I happen to. Wanted to have it checked out, see if I’m a mutant and that’s my skill.”

“It might be. Because I know Cap, and while he can he a stubborn ass, he’s not usually an asshole. Only you can actually provoke him into _wanting_ to hurt you.”

“I made him want to kill me.” That came out sounding more proud than it should. “Quite an achievement, right? Too bad–” Tony shook his head. “You want to kill me yet? Because if you do, wait until I figured this out.” He gestured towards his work space, but Carol didn’t look like she cared about his work. She looked pissed off, and troubled, and like someone who would have a miserable day because Tony ruined it.

“Tony,” she began, calmer now but still strained. A bit like Steve when he spoke to him. “When did–”

“Carol. Please.” Tony sounded pleading now, because he was. “I need to finish this. I know none of you give a damn about the statues and nanites and what they might do to you, but this is really, really important and I don’t know how much time there is to deal with it, so I really, really need to get back to work.”

She was silent to a moment, and Tony knew he had won. She would leave. She would leave him alone.

“You’re hallucinating. Can’t imagine your work benefitting from that.”

“I can recognize the hallucinations for what they are. And I don’t hallucinate nanites or test results. Just people.”

“And you falling face first into a petri dish is going to help?”

“I won’t. I promise. I slept some, I even ate. I can do my goddamn job, if you’d just let me, so please just leave me the hell alone now!” He was beginning to ramble. Not good. She needed to go now, before he had a hysteric fit or something similarly embarrassing. “If you really want to help me, go to Steve and tell him that the nanites are probably related to the bugs from the tunnels. He doesn’t want to talk to me, but this is important, so tell him. Here.” He grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled a few words on it. “Give him that. Or read it to him or whatever, if reading my notes is too much like talking to me for his tastes. I don’t know how to handle this, it makes being on a team really hard. But he needs to know this. That’s why I wrote it down. By the time you see him you’ll probably have forgotten about how important this is, and Cap won’t care, but if something happens you need a piece of paper to remind you. I could also program an alarm into your phone.”

“You’re not even making any sense right now.”

“I am. Trust me.” Okay, that might be too hard. “You remember the bugs we fought? With the green slime?”

“How could I forget?”

It was a relief. Until now, Tony hadn’t even considered they might have dismissed the incident like they did the statues, but it had been a very real possibility. “You’d be surprised. Just tell Cap. He’ll want to know, eventually.”

“Very well.” Finally, _finally_ Carol turned away. “I’ll talk to Cap, all right.”

There was a funny tone to her voice, but Tony didn’t really listen. Carol was leaving and he was already letting the Extremis roam frequencies he until an hour ago hadn’t even known existed. It hurt. That meant he was getting somewhere.

When he finally made a connection, the pain and vertigo were so intense he blacked out for a while.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a game on tv today. Steve, Luke, Jess and Peter had been planning to watch it together, in that vague “If nothing comes up” kind of way with which superheroes planned everything remotely fun. As it happened, nothing had come up, except that Steve didn’t feel like it. He didn’t forget, if only because he saw Peter settle on the couch with a bag of chips half an hour before the start, but he didn’t feel like cheering or socializing and didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else.

When he took a run, it was less for exercise and more for getting away. Fortunately, there were some corners in Central Part that were pretty reliably deserted, and Steve slowed down when he reached one of them, until he came to a slow walk and eventually a stand still.

How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? He had come back to life, had gotten a chance no one who wasn’t an X-Man usually got, and everything was supposed to be okay now. Why wasn’t it?

Maybe there was something wrong with him. He still didn’t know who had brought him back, or to what price. Maybe he had come back wrong. Incapable of being happy with what he had.

Or maybe it was all Tony’s fault. The first couple of days had been pretty okay, until Tony had failed to make an appearance and acted like nothing bad had ever happened between them.

In a way, Jan had been right, Steve had to admit. Maybe not all of his problems began and ended with Tony Stark, but, well, most of them did.

And maybe he had been a bit of an asshole earlier. Yes, Tony had betrayed him. Yes, Tony had lied to him. Yes, Tony had never actually meant to harm him, would always be there to help Steve if he was needed, and Steve knew that. Had known it when he told Tony otherwise. He’d just wanted to push him away, and it had worked. And Steve was left to wonder why he had done it. Because being around Tony, seeing him, talking to him, it made him feel terrible; angry and frustrated. But when he thought of Tony being gone from his life completely (being _gone_ ), it didn’t improve him mood. Rather, Steve felt like in that case his mood might never lift again.

Because then he would never be able to work through his issues, and those were not with Tony’s presence, they were with what had happened between them. And he had no idea how to deal with that when he was the only one trying.

Steve had pushed Tony in the hope of provoking a reaction, he now realized. But Tony hadn’t reacted. Hadn’t cared. Had pretended that it didn’t concern him at all.

He had pretended. Acted normal to conceal the hurt. Steve had known that, because he knew Tony, but he had refused to realize it at the time, instead focusing on his own hurt. He’d tried to push and ended up being pushed away and now he was standing here staring into the air with no idea how to even start fixing this now, since he had actually managed to make everything worse. By acting like a child. Some hero he was.

And some leader. Jan was right, his moods were affecting the team. Fixing things with Tony was the only way to improve the situation, and he might just successfully have made that impossible. Because Tony was an idiot who would not do anything to help him and instead did everything to make it worse.

Steve sighed. He didn’t know how to go at this, and that was not a feeling he was used to. No scenario he could think of would actually end well. They had successfully maneuvered themselves into a corner.

If he tried to talk to Tony again, Tony would block him off and Steve would get angry again and everything would continue to go downhill. And yet, it was what he had to do. (Just like during the war, when he had agreed to meet Tony again and again on the off chance that his old friend would finally see that Steve was right and come over to their side, so they could fight this battle together. Everything would have been better if they had done it together.) And if Tony refused to be mature about this, Steve would have to be.

Maybe he should try some meditation before he walked into this particular battle.

Or maybe he should simply wait until Tony fell over the next time and talk to him while he was too out of it to answer. Yeah, that was a brilliant plan...

Maybe he should simply wait for the next, inevitable disaster to strike. Post-battle euphoria made everything look better, and knowing Tony, a friendly clap on their shoulder would already go a long way.

First of all, Steve needed to stop standing around uselessly and stare into thin air. His muscles were getting cold.

He’d just set to start moving again when a different kind of disaster landed on the path in front of him. Carol looked much the same as she had when he met her in Tony’s penthouse, except she was wearing a different shirt, her hair was in a ponytail, and the look she gave him was even darker. Steve tried not to wince. This was not going to be fun.

But maybe it would be a good test on the Not Getting Angry thing.

“Steve.” Carol's voice was a growl. “What did you say to Tony?”

Straight to the point, as usual. Steve tried to remember if Carol had always had a tendency to get involved in things that were none of her business, but then, she was close to Tony and apparently felt protective of him. Possibly because the man had no sense of self-preservation himself.

Steve still didn't know how he felt about her intervention.

“What makes you think I said anything?” he asked, trying to sound neutral.

“Well, either you said something, or you kicked him in the face a few times and killed his puppy, and since I'm pretty sure the bruises on his face are from lack of sleep, I'm willing to bet on the second option.”

Steve did wince this time. “That bad?”

“If by bad you mean him being even more of an asshole than usual, then yeah, it's pretty bad.”

“So he was an ass to you and you've come to take it out on me?” The question was almost hopeful. It would make things easier.

“No, I came because I know it's your fault. And because Tony told me to tell you something, since apparently you won't talk to him anymore.”

It took effort not to wince yet again. If Tony had send Carol, it had to be important. He could have told Steve himself, even after Steve asked him not to approach him outside of Avengers business, but of course Tony hadn't.

He was about to explain, but then decided that Carol was not the one he had to defend himself to. “I really don't see how that's any of your business,” he said with remarkable calmness. “This is between Tony and me. I'll clear it up with him as soon as I can, if you must know.”

“And will ‘clearing it up’ involve a fistfight between you two? Because you know he's not going to fight back. At best it will be a repeat of your last fight, only that this time you won't have your shield and he won't have his armor.” She suddenly frowned, and then looked at him strangely, as if she'd suddenly thought of or noticed something that disturbed her. “Steve,” she began.

“No.” Steve shook his head, unwilling to go there, to think about that. “You said Tony send you for a reason. What was that?”

She hesitated for a long moment, staring at him, before she reached back and pulled a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of her trousers.

Steve took it, read the words scrawled on it with ballpoint pen. Tony’s handwriting, the letters blending into each other the way they did when he was in a hurry, and uneven because his hand had been shaking. Probably from exhaustion. Steve could tell all this just from looking at Tony’s handwriting, because he knew the man so well. What he did not know was what to make of the message: _Statues from another dimension, prbl. connected to bugs. If anything takes me out, ask Reed._

“How is this supposed to be helpful?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t explain much, just said something about the bugs and the nanites, and I didn’t really care enough to remember.” She shook her head in frustration. “God, I hate this.”

“You’re not the only one. What does Reed have to do with this?”

“No idea, but from the context I’d say Tony is either working with him or leaving him the work in case he dies, since Reed is a genius and might figure it out.” She was looking at Steve again, like that. Like she was judging him. “You know Tony plans for things like that.”

“Can we not do this now?” Steve asked, suddenly feeling just tired. He folded the paper, put it into his own pocket, hoping it wouldn’t fall out, because he was in his sweat pants and the pockets weren’t very deep. He might need this at some point; if something should happen to Tony, or if he worked himself into the ground to the extent where he would be out of commission for a while. In that case, Steve might need to find this paper again, to remember that there was something he needed to ask Reed about.

“You want to make an appointment for it, then?” Carol asked icily. “Would next Tuesday be okay with you? I’m free for lunch.”

“Just stop it! This doesn’t involve you.”

“The hell it doesn’t! Tony is my friend, and he said you wanted to kill him, and you really did, didn’t you? That final fight, when the police men had to drag you away from him, you were going to _kill him_.”

Hearing it said was even worse than knowing it was true. There was a bench nearby and Steve had to walk over there and sit down, his hands clenched to fists. “I didn’t mean it. It was just the heat of the fight, and he kept urging me on...”

“He was also defenseless,” Carol snapped. “That wasn’t a fight, Cap! That was you beating him up while your friends were watching. Tony never even had a chance to fight back, and if you had killed him, if you had gone through with it – if they had _let you_ , it wouldn’t have been self-defense. It wouldn’t have been an accident, the tragic outcome of a fight that got out of hand-”

“It would have been murder,” Steve finished for her. “I know. I was so angry. We had to win and I knew we’d have to play dirty for that. After everything Tony did, it felt justified. But then it did get out of hand; all the rage just boiled up and I... lost it. I lost it.”

“You lost control.” Carol nodded grimly, standing before him with tense shoulders and a hardness around her mouth that told Steve things might never be the same between them either. “You fucked up. Welcome to being human.”

“I’ve always been human. I always made mistakes.”

“Yes? How many friends did you murder over a disagreement?”

“This wasn’t just a disagreement!” Steve nearly shouted – all efforts to be calm about this had been abandoned when she brought up that fight. “It was a war! A war Tony started! By lying to us, by manipulating Peter and keeping secrets –”

“And you just jumped at the opportunity without ever listening to our explanations or thinking about why he did what he did. You just saw that he did something you didn’t agree with and decided to fight. After being friends for so long, after Tony almost killed himself to save you just weeks before, you just decided that he was... what? Corrupted? On a power trip?”

“I tried to talk to him!”

“But you wouldn’t listen! And everyone else just followed you because if Captain America has an opinion, it can’t be wrong.”

“I never asked for that kind of blind loyalty.”

“But you got it. People think you’re perfect. Even those of us who know you’re not respect you more than anyone else, because we knew your moral compass always pointed north. Do you have any idea how hard it was to fight you? Not just because you were our friend, but also because the mere fact that you disagreed with what we were doing told us that we were terrible human beings and could never be forgiven. And do you know why we did it anyway?”

“Because you thought it was the right thing to do,” Steve answered. “I know that. Just like I did what I knew was right. What do you want? Do you expect me to not do the right thing, not stand up for my beliefs, just because I’m Captain America and people have learned from countless examples that my judgment is usually to be trusted?” He wished he could take those words back even before he’d finished speaking them, and not only because they sounded petty and too full of himself.

“The problem is not the ‘people’; it’s you who’s learned that you are always right. It never occurred to you that you might not be, or that things might be not quite as black-and-white as you wanted to see them. The problem is” – Carol raised her voice when Steve opened his mouth to protest, cutting him off – “that you fought not only against the means with which the SHRA was enforced, but the law itself, the _will of the people_ , based on your belief that superheroes don’t need regulations and control because we don’t fuck up. Not like that. That we learn from our mistakes, and that we can govern ourselves if someone commits a crime, be it accidentally or on purpose. And we admitted to your right to believe that because you are not like me, or Tony, or Hank. You don’t fuck up like we do.” She still sounded angry, but also strangely heartbroken, and Steve couldn’t tell from the lines of her body if she was going to fly off or punch him.

“I did,” he agreed, quietly after all the shouting. “And if you have to know, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life, starting the moment I realized what I’d done.” The moment it would have been too late to take it back. ”I would have handed myself over to the authorities, would have accepted any punishment...”

“...and there wouldn’t have been any.” Carol finished for him. “Not really. No one would have believed you did it on purpose. Not any judge or jury and certainly not your friends. Probably not even me. You could have pleaded guilty, told them a thousand times, and they still would have absolved you of any guilt. Would have blamed Tony, would have insisted it had been an accident, probably self-defense. Because they all love you and they know, as surely as they know the sun rises in the morning, that _you don’t do this kind of thing_!” The last words she almost shouted.

And Steve closed his eyes because he knew she was right.

 

-

 

For a while, Steve got lost in his own head. There was something that he had refused to think about, to acknowledge, for so long, and now that he was forced to face it, it was nearly too much. Because he had nearly murdered someone, murdered _Tony_ (Carol was right, there was no other word for it), and no matter what he wanted to believe, he knew he would never have been given the punishment he’d have deserved. Even if he had gone to jail for that, rather than for opposing registration, the next threat would have come and he would have been pardoned. People would have protested for his freedom, claiming his innocence. His closest friends would have put his insistence that he’d acted with purpose and without need down to misplaced guilt.

And it would have driven him insane.

His face was buried in his hands. Around him it was very quiet, safe for the sound of birds, the rustling of leaves, and the voices of children in the distance. Steve thought, vaguely, that Carol had left, and was startled when he heard someone sit down on the bench beside him.

“We were so happy when you came back,” Carol said, much calmer now. “I mean, we were happy about it anyway, but Rhodes and me, and Pepper, too, I suppose, we thought that things would get better with Tony now. I guess it was naive to assume that you two would simply make up and everything would be okay again, but I thought that at least he'd let go of the guilt some and have something to live for again. Instead, seems like he thinks that with you back to take care of everything, he's expendable now.” Her hand found its way onto Steve's arm. “Not being expendable is the only thing that's kept him here so far.”

Steve remembered, though he wished he wouldn't, her words from earlier: that it had been only a matter of whether it would be suicide by super villain in the end, or simply suicide. (Since a bunch of strangers had kept him from committing Suicide by Captain America months ago.) “You honestly think Tony is going to kill himself?”

“I think he's not trying very hard to stay alive,” Carol corrected him, which was marginally better. “And I don't know who brought you back, but I doubt anyone would try to do the same for Tony Stark.”

“I would.” The words left Steve's mouth before he knew he was even going to speak. They were true, though. He was mad at Tony now, but the thought of never moving past that, never being friends again, was more than he could bear.

( _Everything will be alright in the end_ , a half forgotten quote whispered through his thoughts. _If it's not alight it's not the end._ In his mind, it sounded bitter and sarcastic.)

And if they made up? Would he be able to let Tony go then?

Ever?

“There's hope for you yet,” Carol said, and added, “He loves you, you know.”

Steve didn’t react. He just sat there. After a few moments, Carol got up and left. Steve didn’t even know if she flew away or walked. Didn’t care either. He just sat there.

Eventually, he got up and left as well.

 

-

 

Steve’s muscles had gone cold. More than that, he simply didn’t feel like running anymore. Maybe he should go to the desert, or the mountains, he thought distantly. Take a long walk. Get his head clear.

Instead, he walked towards Stark Tower.

By the time he got there, it was almost dark. A cool breeze had come up, feeling like a blessing after the heat of the day, and he closed his eyes for a moment, standing still, before he entered the brightly lit lobby.

The ride up to the penthouse seemed to take forever and yet be far too short. The polished walls of the elevator were grating on his nerves. There was no mirror. Elevators like this usually had one, but until now Steve had never thought about the fact that this one hadn’t. (Tony didn’t like mirrors very much.)

The elevator stopped. Steve emerged and stood in the hall, uncertain what to do. He felt mostly numb, drained. The lights in the common room were lit, and while Steve stood there, Jarvis came out, looking proper and composed like always, but also tired, somehow. It was there, in the ever-so-slight slump of his shoulders, in the way he didn’t quite smile.

“Sir,” he said politely.

Steve looked past him into the room, saw a book upturned on the table, a cup of coffee beside it with a spoon sitting neatly on the saucer. “Did he come up at all?”

“Not today. I brought him something to drink earlier, something for his health, and he drank it, but other than that he did not appear to notice me. He is... very immersed in his work. I trust it is important.” It wasn’t quite a question, but Steve still answered it.

“It actually is. And Tony’s the only one who can do this. I wish it weren’t so.” But then, who knew what Tony would have done if it weren’t. “I’ll check on him, okay? If I can, I’ll bring him up.”

Jarvis looked relieved, though Steve wasn’t even sure how he could tell. The old man nodded once, and watched as Steve got into the elevator that would get him to the sub-basement. If he had any hope at all, he would now go to prepare Tony’s bed, and maybe something to eat.

The lights of the workshop were mostly out. The place was illuminated almost solely by the lights of the various computer screens that bathed everything in a cold, bluish hue. Of Tony there was no sight.

Frowning, Steve stepped deeper into the room. Tony could have taken the other elevator and left without Jarvis noticing, but that was pretty unlikely unless Tony had somewhere specific he needed to be. As he walked between the various tables, boxes and apparatuses that blocked his view, Steve was suddenly overcome with the fear of finding Tony lying motionless on the floor, because the nanites he’d been playing with had done something to him, something he had not been careful enough to avoid.

When he did find Tony, it was indeed on the floor, but sitting there rather that lying. Tony’s shoulders were slumped, his head bent, and he was the very picture of exhaustion, but he was holding himself upright under his own power and Steve breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

It was obvious that Tony hadn’t heard him even though Steve had made no effort to be quiet. Even when Steve said his name Tony didn’t react. Only when a large hand grasped his shoulder did he flinch and look up.

The first thing he did, even before his eyes focused on Steve’s face, was wipe the blood off his face; an instinctive, habitual gesture.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Steve said dumbly.

Tony blinked, then looked down at his hand as if the realization that he had just wiped blood off himself came as a surprise. “It does that.” His voice was hoarse, the words almost slurred, but there was a very awake, almost manic gleam in his eyes that told Steve he was on to something.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked as Tony climbed to his feet. He tried to help, offer some support, but before he could touch Tony a second time, Tony was already leaning heavily on the back of his chair, his back to Steve. He slit around and onto the seat, and immediately opened a file on his computer.

Seconds later he was typing furiously on the keyboard, though when he looked very closely, Steve could see that the lines of text grew faster than Tony was hitting the keys. Why he even bothered to type at all was beyond the other man. Maybe he was just very tired.

When he concentrated on the words on the screen, Steve realized that it was some kind of log describing facts about the nanites, their origin and their behavior. From what he caught on such a quick glance, Tony didn’t intend for his text to be read by someone not familiar with some of the more scientific vocabulary. Or without the ability to form thought fragments into whole, coherent sentences.

“What did you find out?” It seemed like a good place to start. It was important, too, but mostly Steve extended the question as a peace offering; to show that he hadn’t come to fight.

But then, he had never come to Tony with the intention to fight with him. Not in recent weeks, anyway.

“The statues aren’t from this dimension.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, made it stand up in that way Steve had always found strangely endearing, especially when Tony was wearing a neat and proper business suit. He was wearing one now, too; the same one he had been dressed in when Steve had last seen him. It wasn’t neat and proper anymore, though. His jacket was gone, draped over the back of his chair, and he’d never worn a tie in the first place. The dress shirt was rumbled and stained.

Right now, Steve forced himself to care about the statues from another dimension, though. It was harder than ever. “Another dimension? Like the bugs that came from the sewers that day?”

“You mean that day the statues first showed up? Exactly like them. They are connected somehow, though I’m not sure yet how. I stand with my theory that the bugs came here by accident, because there has been nothing purposeful about that, but these statues are a different matter. They look more like an invasion – a silent, creepy invasion that no one notices until they kill you because no one gives a damn. Pretty clever, actually.” Tony leaned back and looked over to the transparent case still holding his own collection of nanites that seemed to have changed their formation and now looked a like a very small could of grey dust. “I thought it was just a side effect of the not being entirely here, but no one had any problems noticing the bugs, least of all the people they ate.” He stopped, shuddered, and Steve, too, was overcome by the image of people going on as usual while around them their neighbors were eaten by giant bugs. “So they have to do it on purpose. At first I thought their appearance might be coincidental, by our dimensions overlapping, but...” He trailed off, his eyes suddenly going wide. “Of course!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” Steve asked, interested despite himself. Apparently even the mind numbing influence of another dimension didn’t stand a chance against Tony Stark’s magnetic enthusiasm when he was in the process of figuring something out.

“It _was_ accidental that the bugs came here, but they didn’t come through a portal, the dimensions _did_ overlap and a whole area of _their_ tunnel shifted into ours. You said part of the ceiling had collapsed – I suppose the parts didn’t quite fit, so the shift caused structural damage. It must have happened years ago, though. Why did the statues show up only now?” Tony abruptly stood from his chair and immediately fell into it again, clutching his head. “Ouch,” he whispered.

“Take it easy,” Steve said, putting a hand on Tony's shoulder to steady him.

Tony shook his head. “I need to go to the sewers.”

“Whatever for? There's nothing there anymore.”

“There's an entire section from another dimension there,” Tony pointed out. “And my scanner didn't pick up on it. I need to see why. What is wrong with that place?" The question sounded like it was for himself, so Steve didn't even try to answer it. This was hardly his field of expertise anyway.

Something else, however, was. “Maybe there's something wrong with _you_ ,” he said, hoping his voice was soft enough for his words to not be taken for criticism or an attack. “You're barely able to stand for exhaustion. I'm not saying your theory is wrong, I just don't think it's something you should take care off before you had a hot meal and a lot of sleep. You'll be able to think more clearly then.” He moved the hand on Tony's shoulder to the base of his neck, gently stroking his thumb over Tony‘s overly warm skin.

Tony froze for a moment. Then he started laughing. The sound was soft and heartbroken. “That just might be the first useful thing you have said in weeks,” he admitted, his voice bitter. “I'll give you that. But this is just playing dirty.” He twisted out of Steve's hold and stood, using the edge of the table to push himself upright. “Never thought I'd actually prefer the dead body version if you,” he muttered under hid breath.

Steve recoiled as if Tiny had burned him. “What?”

He knew he had hurt Tony before (after all, he had meant to) but that was unexpectedly cruel.

Tony didn't react at all. He drew a shaking hand over his face before starting to push the papers on the table around, stacking them to piles for seemingly no reason but to give his hands something to do. When he was done, he was completely still for about three seconds before he swept the nearest pile off the table with a force Steve was surprised his body was still able to produce.“ “Fuck everything,” he cursed.

“Tony...” Steve began, but Tony completely ignored him. He wandered over to the case with the nanites and stared at them as if they were the cause of all evil in the world, and for a second Steve thought he would hit that, too. Instead, Tony tuned on the spot and walked past Steve, still acting as if he weren’t there. When Steve reached for his arm, he flinched away, but that was the only sign that he was even still aware of Steve’s presence.

Apparently he was determined to be the asshole this time, but tempting as it was, Steve refused to rise to the bait. One of them had to be the mature one for once. “Listen, Tony, I know... Hey,” he trailed off when Tony swayed on his feet and had to lean against a machine to keep from falling. Steve tried to steady him again, but after a moment of holding him as gently as possible, like a spooked animal, Tony brushed off his hands with an angry gesture.

“Stop this,” he hissed, but he wasn’t even looking at Steve so it seemed absurdly like he was talking to himself, and Steve felt like he was missing something, until Tony rambled on: “It was bad enough before,” he muttered, “but this is just sick. I should have deleted my damn mind when I had the chance.” He suddenly flinched again even though Steve hadn’t moved, and turned around to look over his shoulder, turning even paler than he was before. Steve followed his gaze and saw nothing that would warrant such a reaction.

“There are two of you now?” Tony whispered. “This is getting better and better.”

It was dawning on Steve that there was something really, really wrong with Tony. And if he was to bet, he would put his money on the Extremis being to blame. That, or the nanites, or both. “Tony,” he said again, his voice firm. He took a step forward, taking advantage of the fact that Tony was trapped between him and the machine, and took both of his friend’s shoulders in a careful but firm grip. “Look at me.”

Tony hadn’t liked to be touched before, so Steve knew there might be a negative reaction, but he hadn’t been prepared for how _violent_ it would be. Suddenly, Tony lashed out, and there was something in his hand – Steve only caught the gleam of the weak light on metal and had time to reel back, but not enough to get entirely out of range.

“Leave me alone!” Tony yelled. “I know you’re not real!” It confirmed what Steve had feared but didn’t keep the thankfully blunt object in Tony’s hand entirely from connecting with his face.

Steve stumbled back, more from surprise than from the actual impact, though it did hurt. His hand flew up to his cheek instinctively and came back with blood on his fingers, but he knew at once that it wasn’t anything to worry about, and seriously, he had more important things to deal with right now.

Like Tony apparently losing his mind.

“Hey.” Steve lifted his hands, showing his palms, to signal that he was harmless, but Tony kept staring at his face with wild eyes. Then his gaze began to shift between Steve and some spot behind his shoulder, and finally it went down to Tony’s own hands, one of which was still clutching the wrench he had hit Steve with. There were a few drops of blood on the metal, barely notable.

The tool slipped from Tony’s fingers and he began to hyperventilate.

Steve was there in time to catch him when he passed out.

“Shit,” he whispered.

 

-

 

Carrying Tony over to the couch half-hidden between a work bench and something Steve couldn’t for the life of him identify was not a problem. Steve had carried his unconscious friend more often than he cared to think about; even when Tony was wearing the armor, it had been manageable for someone with Steve’s superhuman strength. Now, he barely felt the weight of the body in his arms.

Tony moaned softly when Steve placed him on the soft surface. His unconsciousness wasn’t very deep, he’d be awake in no time. There was no reason to worry this much.

There was plenty to worry about already.

Looking down at Tony, Steve ran a hand through his own short hair and tried to remain calm. Tony was exhausted, sick, and just had a bit of an emotional breakdown. Okay. Steve could handle that. He should be able to handle that – he was a superhero, after all. But coming here, he had not been prepared for any of this to happen.

None of his meetings with Tony had gone the way he had expected them to, lately.

He should get help. Maybe he should ask Carol. Or Jarvis. Or Pepper. One of them had to know if this was normal. Tony had been talking as if seeing things that weren’t real was actually something ordinary for him. Either way, Steve shouldn’t try to do this alone when he was the one person who had no idea what had gone on for – and with – Tony in recent months.

A wave of despair crashed over him, suddenly and unexpectedly. Something was wrong with Tony. Something was _always_ wrong with Tony.

Steve had never liked the Extremis and the way it had changed his friend and made him push himself even harder, but he had hoped that at least the healing factor would make sure that they never had to worry about Tony’s health again.

And here they were. And if there was something messing with Tony’s mind, chances were the Extremis was at fault.

Or those nanites were doing something to Tony. The thought came to Steve far, far too late. He should have considered the possibility at once. Tony had been researching them, had probably accessed them and maybe they accesses him right back, or got into his body somehow and were rewiring his brain.

Steve should get Hank McCoy to take a look at this. Or at least Hank Pym. First of all, he needed to inform Jarvis. Steve was just pulling out the phone he always carried with him even if he went for a run (because there was no telling when Captain America would be needed all of a sudden) but before he could dial, Tony moaned again and opened his eyes, his hand immediately going to his head.

“Hey,” Steve said, gently propping him up when he tried to sit. He wanted to say more but honestly couldn’t think of anything. Nothing appropriate, and certainly nothing that wouldn’t sound stupid. So he settled for wrapping an arm around Tony and holding him upright.

Tony’s head was leaning heavily against Steve’s shoulder. He sat still for a long moment, just staring down at his hands, just breathing. Eventually he asked, his voice rough, “Did I just have a mental breakdown in front of Captain America?”

“I’d say it was a mental breakdown in front of Steve Rogers, and a minor one at best.” Steve tried to smile, though Tony couldn’t see it. “Though I would like to know what that was about. You thought I wasn’t real?”

It wasn’t really a question, and Steve didn’t ask if it was better now, because obviously it was. Either that, or Tony had just accepted that he had gone insane and that not interacting with the constructs of his mind was an exercise in futility.

“Yeah, that happens.” Tony shifted to sit up straighter, more on his own, but Steve kept his arm around him none the less. Tony didn’t quite make a dismissive gesture to imply it wasn’t a big deal but he might as well have. “Well, not like this, obviously. I can usually tell what’s a hallucination and what isn’t. Guess I should sleep more.”

“You think?” Steve said, stunned. “This _‘happens’_? And you never tried to get help for it?”

“I’m not insane, Steve,” Tony told him. “It’s the Extremis.”

“Oh, of course it is!” Steve had known it. Not for the first time he wished Tony had never in any way, shape, or form, gotten involved with Maya Hansen.

“”It’s actually helpful, most of the time,” Tony defended the abomination he had done to himself. “Through Extremis, I gather much more information than my mind can handle, so most of it gets redirected to my subconscious. If there is something from that giant pool of information that I need to know in a given situation, Extremis points it out to me in the form of hallucinations.”

“Right. That sounds so much better.”

“Well, it can hardly write me a letter, can it?”

Steve didn’t quite see why not. It certainly wouldn’t have been more out there than what he was hearing right now. “Why would it make you hallucinate _me_? How does that make sense?”

“It’s not always you. Just sometimes. It has something to do with where the information is stored in my mind. As it happens, it shares a spot with my guilty conscience, so hey! Dead people.”

“…Oh.” Steve said, and then he was silent for a few seconds, trying to work through how goddamn disturbing this was and how Tony shouldn’t talk about it like it was something normal. “So that’s why you said you liked the dead version of me better.”

Now, for the first time, Tony made a real effort to get away from him. Steve didn’t let him, but he gave his friend enough room to turn and stare at him. “You thought I wished you were still dead,” he realized.

“Not really.” It sounded weak because it wasn’t true, and Tony knew that.

“Steve, I _never_ … You coming back was the one good thing that happened this year. It may have been the best thing to happen _in my life_. How could you think –”

“You didn’t come,” Steve blurted out. “I came back and you didn’t even show up to say Hi. I thought you didn’t care, or worse, that me coming back was somehow _inconvenient_ to you.”

“Because the return of the fallen hero interfered with my evil power trip?” Tony asked with a bitter smile. He shook his head when Steve opened his mouth to protest. “I get why you thought that. It’s not true, but I can see how you got the impression.”

“I know you, Tony. I know you’re not like that, and I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

“You thought the Extremis had changed me,” Tony recalled, and hell, was he actually defending Steve for being an ass?

“That’s hardly an excuse. I know Extremis changed you, but I shouldn’t have used that as an excuse to jump at the easiest conclusion when you did something I didn’t understand instead of trying to figure out what was going on in your head.”

“It didn’t change me.” Now Tony sounded a little impatient, a little more like he used to when discussing this. “It changed what I can do, not who I am. I never wanted any of the power and responsibility they dumped on me. When I lost my position as Director of SHIELD, even under the circumstances, I was glad. I was miserable at the job anyway.”

“Then why did you take it in the first place?”

“To keep someone else from doing it. Because that would have been even worse.”

“That’s your problem, Tony: You think you are the only one who can do it right. You always think you know best.” Steve wasn’t getting angry, he really wasn’t. But his emotions were all over the place and he couldn’t not say it, even though he had said it a hundred times before.

“I also happen to know I am right on this one. I made mistakes, terrible mistakes, but in the same position and with the same level of information I had then, I would do it again.”

At least Tony stood up for what he had done, not making excuses or taking the, in the end, easier way of claiming he had learned the error of his ways and coming over to Steve’s side as Steve had asked him to several times during their conflict. Steve could respect that, if nothing else. Of course, there were no sides anymore, and no matter how much Steve wished Tony had taken his offer then so they could have fought whatever would have happened then together, he was no longer as convinced as he’d been before that they would have been able to. At the very least, he could admit that Tony had honestly believed what he had done was necessary to prevent something worse.

“But then you died,” Tony whispered. “That is the one thing I never wanted… no. I never wanted any of this, but that, that I couldn’t live with. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was.” Toney was speaking without emotion, the dull voice at odds it his words. “I’ve had time since then to analyze every step I’ve taken. I know exactly where I went wrong, what I could have done to better protect you. What I could have done to make _you_ come to _my_ side and prevent all this fighting in the first place.”

“You know I’d never have done that.”

“Yes, you would. If only I had told you everything. If I had explained what was going on, if I had made you understand what would happen if no superhero supported the SHRA, what the alternatives were…” He shrugged vaguely. “I knew it was coming long before you ever heard of it. If I had explained then, when you were still willing to listen, you would have helped me. But you would have hated yourself for it, and I couldn’t let that happen. I guess I was selfish.”

“Selfish,” Steve echoed weakly.

“You’d have lost your faith in America, and in yourself, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to protect the person you were then, even if it meant we could never be friends again. But then you died, and that… was too high a price to pay for your innocence. Nothing of this was worth that.”

Tony’s calm, composed voice was eerie. He was no longer looking at Steve and it almost seemed like he was talking to himself again.

“And what makes you think me – and everyone else – hating you was an acceptable price to pay?”

“I did.” Tony finally looked at him again, as if Steve had just asked something particularly stupid.

“I nearly killed you!” Steve snapped, his anger finally rearing its ugly head again, but different, this time.

“I would have been okay with that,” Tony admitted. “I think I wanted you to. And yeah, I _know_ that was selfish, and it’s not like I had planned it, but right then, faced with that way out, I didn’t mind. Maybe things would have gone better then. Maybe you wouldn’t have died.” He shrugged again. “I _was_ being selfish that moment, but that aside, things probably would have been better for everyone.”

“’Selfish’ doesn’t cover it, Tony! I would have killed you! How would that have been better for me?”

“It would have happened in the middle of a fight. No one would have tried you for murder. Self-defense, an accident at worst. Don’t worry – there wasn’t much time, but I did have the presence of mind to consider that.”

“But I would have had to live with that!” Steve pointed out. “I would have had to live with having killed you. Did you take _that_ into consideration?”

Tony looked at him through large, blue eyes. “I didn’t think that would have been a problem,” he said, sounding a little lost. “We weren’t friends anymore. I betrayed you. You wanted to kill me and we never would have been able to work together after this anyway, so I thought… It was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Steve just wanted to shake him until he came to his senses. “I was already abhorred by the time I lifted the shield. I just couldn’t control myself. If I had, if you had let me do that, I wouldn’t have been able to live with it.”

“Well, yeah. That’s because you’re not a killer. But you do kill when you have to.”

“But I _didn’t_ have to!”

“Yes, you did. I was the enemy, and I won. Killing me would have prevented that. You’re a superhero. Keeping your enemies from winning is what you _do_.”

“So are you, Tony! This isn’t about me killing someone – I did that, and I didn’t always regret it. This is about me killing _you_ , you asshole! I don’t want you to be gone, and least of all I want to be the one who killed you.”

“But you hate me.” It was spoken without force, which made it worse.

“I don’t. I never did. I was just mad at you.” Suddenly, Tony was leaning against Steve again, and he needed a second before he realized that this was because Steve had tightened his hold on him. “You can get to me like no one else can, but that’s only because you mean so much to me. Do you think Logan or Vision opposing me like that would have made me nearly as angry?”

“Just today you told me never to talk to you again,” Tony pointed out, weakly pushing at Steve and not gaining an inch of space.

“Because I’m not all as mature as I’d like to think I am. You hurt me, Tony. So I wanted to hurt you. I thought that would finally make you angry. In the end I only hurt myself.”

“You did,” Tony whispered. “I mean, you did get to me, even though I knew you were right.” He stopped, and when he continued, Steve could hear the self-depreciating smile in his voice. “I dumped all the alcohol in this building in this sink today.”

So with his petty action Steve had nearly driven Tony to drink again; something the whole damn war between them hadn’t been able to do. He hadn’t thought it would be possible for him to feel any worse about himself, but here it was.

There were about a thousand things he could have said, and should have said then. But all he did say was, “Can we please not fight anymore? I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” as he tightened his hold on Tony even more.

Tony just nodded wordlessly, leaning heavily against him and burying his face in Steve’s shoulder. He didn’t shake, didn’t make any sound, but Steve felt the wetness against his skin as tears soaked his shirt. Tony had to be pretty devastated if he allowed himself to cry, even soundlessly, in front o Steve, Or maybe he was just too exhausted to notice.

Steve found himself rubbing his back before he made the conscious decision to do so and wondered how they had ever managed to fall so far apart.

Eventually, Tony fell very still and Steve knew he had finally passed out from the physical and emotional drain, peacefully this time. Or at least that was what he thought until he carefully slid an arm under the back of Tony’s knees and Tony made a startled sound as he was lifted off the couch.

“What are you doing?” he asked in what Steve, in consideration of Tony’s ego, would not call an undignified squeak.

“Getting you to bed. You need sleep. I don’t think your work is so important that you should kill yourself over it –”

“You don’t, that’s the problem!”

“– and I know for a fact that you’ll work better if you’re rested enough to at least think in a straight line.”

“Straight lines are not the solution here, and by the way, I can! You know what else I can? _Walk_ in a straight line. Let me down!” He wriggled for emphasis but didn’t stand a chance against the Captain America brand of physical strength.

“Ten minutes ago you couldn’t even stand, so I’m not taking any chances. I’m too scared of was Jarvis will do to me if I let you kneel over,” Steve said dryly. Tony glared at him, then his gaze drifted to something just over Steve’s shoulder, as if there was someone standing behind him. He resisted the urge to turn around. “There’s got to be something we can do about those hallucinations,” he decided. Even if Tony was apparently used to them, they were obviously driving him at least a little crazy. “Can you shut down the Extremis completely? Even for a while, so you can get a break?”

“No,” Tony said. “I can’t. And I need it.”

“Not when you’re sleeping. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to disable it somehow, block the signal to your brain or something. I know you; you’d think of something just in case it would be necessary one day.” At least that was what Steve hoped: that for the case that Extremis became hijacked again, Tony had at the very least _tried_ to find a way to block it that did not involve killing himself.

“There is a way,” Tony said unwillingly. “But it wouldn’t keep me from hallucinating and the last time we tried that, I hat to cut off half my foot to get rid of it and that’s really not worth it.”

That… didn’t really sound like as much of an improvement as Steve had hoped. He’d have to ask someone what exactly Tony had meant by this eventually, but right now, he didn’t think he wanted to hear it.

By now they had reached the elevator and were on their way up. Tony was still pushing at Steve and trying to get away, muttering something about this being undignified.

“For the record, falling on your face is also undignified. Not to mention that I carried you like this about a hundred times before, and so far you never had a problem with it.”

“That’s because I was unconscious at those times.” Tony coughed, which took some force out of the words. “You know, I wasn’t aware it was happening, and also, if someone is unconscious, carrying them actually makes sense. Now let me down, before Jarvis sees this and worries.”

“He’s worrying anyway,” Steve pointed out, but let Tony down to his feet. He briefly considered stepping away just so Tony would learn his lesson by falling over the moment the support was gone, but wasn’t feeling quite that petty. Also, experience had taught him that Tony wouldn’t learn the lesson anyway. “You’re putting him through a lot, you know.”

“I told him to move to the mansion.” Tony’s voice sounded dull, as if now he had gotten his will he no longer had any fight left in him. “It’s not like he has an awful lot to do here, and besides, he’s always liked the mansion better anyway.”

So did Tony himself, as Steve happened to know. “You could solve his dilemma by moving back to the mansion yourself.”

Tony just snorted. Apparently that had been as stupid a suggestion as Steve had feared it was, and if he was honest, he wasn’t all that convinced it was a good idea himself. As much as he wanted things to get back to normal between them, neither the team nor Tony himself would benefit from too much closeness right now.

The elevator was fast, one of the fastest on the planet. Still, it was a high building and the ride took time, as usual. When they finally arrived at the penthouse, Steve was kind of counting on Tony going down the moment he tried to take a step, but Tony stubbornly remained on his feet, even if he was swaying a lot.

Jarvis greeted them with a blank expression that was a far cry from the worry he had displayed when Steve had arrived. “I prepared your bedroom for you, Sir,” he said smoothly and in a way that implied Tony should better not get the idea to ask for coffee.

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Steve replied, starting down the hall with an arm around Tony’s waist, dragging him along. Tony made a noise as if he wanted to say something, but even that sounded tired. By the time they reached the bedroom, Steve was almost completely supporting his weight.

Getting him into bed was no problem at all. Tony just made a soft, humming noise, rolled to his side, and was out. Considering he hadn’t passed out on the way to the room and wasn’t drenched in sweat, he looked slightly better than last time Steve had seen him like this, but he still looked far from healthy, and when Steve touched his forehead, the skin was hot and dry under his palm.

He took off Tony’s shoes and tucked the covers around him, and then he sat on the edge of the bed and didn’t know what to do next.

Chances were that, should he leave now, Tony would wake up and think this whole conversation had been a product of his exhausted and hallucinating brain, and they’d be right back where they had started. It wasn’t all _that_ likely, but this was Tony, and things with Tony were always as difficult as they possibly could be, and then some.

Good thing, then, that Steve didn’t really feel like leaving. He wanted to be able to continue their conversation (and maybe make sure Tony showered and ate before going back to work) as soon as he could, without having to worry about what, and how, Tony was doing all day while Steve was elsewhere.

He did, he found to his quiet surprise, want to spend time with Tony, simply because it had been a long time since he had and he was beginning to learn that there was no reason for them to hate each other.

“You’re a moron, Tony,” Steve whispered, gently brushing a stray lock of hair out of his friend’s pale face. Then he got up, stretched, and quietly left the room. He ended up in the common room, where he met Jarvis. “No offense, Jarvis,” he said. “But your employer is a moron.”

Jarvis met his eyes with no discernable expression. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said in that bland tone of voice that said that he completely agreed.


	5. Chapter 5

Outside the window, the sun was just beginning to set, the horizon just beginning to take on a red hue. It looked like the sunset would be beautiful today, though mostly Steve was simply amazed that it was only evening. After the emotionally draining time he’d spent in the basement, he had lost his sense of time somewhat. It felt much later to him than it actually was.

He could just lie down and go to sleep right now without feeling like he was wasting daytime, but that might also have something to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten much sleep lately and was very tired.

He’d also been very hungry, but Jarvis had fed him a rather very good, if simple, meal. Steve couldn’t fight off the impression that the butler was happy to finally have someone to take care of who was actually around to be taken care of.

At least there had been no disaster today. Contrary to common belief, New York did not in fact get attacked by alien warlords, monsters from another dimension, or Galactus every other day, but such incidents did tend to come at the most inconvenient times possible, and it would have been particularly inconvenient today.

But Steve’s phone never rang, and the news showed nothing that would have demanded his attention. For the moment, the universe seemed to take mercy on Steve Rogers. And on Tony Stark, who actually got to get the sleep he desperately needed.

Even on Edwin Jarvis, who got to know that the man he had basically raised was finally taking a break, and who actually got to do his job for a change, even if it was for the wrong person. Steve watched him out of the corner of his eye for a bit, thinking about what he had heard about the months he’d missed, but didn’t say anything. ‘So I hear you were a Skrull,’ was rarely a good conversation starter.

Jarvis didn’t deserve all the things being associated with Tony Stark and the Avengers put him through – but then, who did?

Steve suppressed a yawn. Jarvis had already assured him that it would be okay for him to spend the night. It wasn’t Jarvis’ home, strictly speaking, but Steve had lived here once, during the times they didn’t have the mansion, and he’d actually forgotten to ask in the first place. For all that the mansion was home, Steve had never really stopped thinking of this building as the Avengers Tower.

He’d also called the mansion, to let the others know that he wouldn’t be coming back this night. He felt a little silly doing it, because they were all adults with normal, adult private lives and were not, in fact, living with their parents, but Steve was a super hero whose real identity was public knowledge and if he disappeared, his friends worried. Now, his staying out overnight wouldn’t have caused an international incident, but someone would probably have called his cell to see if he was alright, just to make sure, and Steve wanted to avoid that.

It had been Jessica Drew who’d picked up the phone, and though she hadn’t said anything, he could tell from the amusement in her voice that she thought he was spending the night with a woman. Steve hadn’t told her otherwise. He’s just been happy that it hadn’t been Carol on the other end of the line.

After dinner, Steve went to his old room one floor below for a quick shower. He’d been out running, after all, and though his sweat had long since dried he still felt unpleasantly sticky. He found his former bedroom clean and neat, as expected, but also with fresh sheets on the bed and a pile of fresh towels on the pillow. Jarvis had obviously prepared the room for him to stay in, though Steve had no idea when he might have done that.

After the shower, Steve went upstairs again. The common room was deserted, no sign of Jarvis. The door to Tony’s bedroom opened, though, and Steve expected the old butler to emerge from it. Instead, it was Tony who nearly ran into him, his eyes wide and wild and his whole body shaking. He looked two seconds away from a full-blown panic attack as he stopped dead one step from colliding with Steve’s chest and stared at him.

Bad dream. Steve knew that feeling – and if the way Tony was looking at him was any indication, he had featured in that nightmare. To Steve, this was proof that had been the right decision to stay here until Tony woke up.

He should have said something soothing then, something to calm Tony down, but his own surprise got the better of him and what he blurted out was, “Damn it, Tony, you were out for barely two hours! How are you even awake?”

Tony just kept staring. He was swaying a little on his feet and didn’t even look properly awake. His shirt and the pants of his suit were crumbled and Steve suddenly felt bad for letting him sleep in these clothes. It couldn’t have been comfortable.

When Tony did move, it was to put a hand flat against Steve’s chest, as if he had to touch him to make sure he was real. Without thinking, Steve reached out and drew him close, gently patting his back. “I’m the real one,” he promised. “Don’t worry. Just go back to sleep.”

He steered Tony back to his bed, but this time he made him take off his shirt and pants, shaking his head sadly when he saw just how thin his old friend had become. There was a brief flash of anger at Tony’s friends who hadn’t properly taken care of him while Steve was gone, but he was aware that he was being unfair. He knew Jarvis, Carol, and Pepper Potts had done everything they could. Tony was a grown man – a self-destructive grown man who was needed for far too many things, and the only thing they could have done to slow him down would have been tying him to a bed and force feeding him.

Belatedly, he remembered what Carol told him, about Tony being in love with him. But there was nothing awkward about any of this, about Tony sitting there in his underwear until Steve handed him a shirt. Tony was mostly out of it anyway, and they had seen each other naked often enough. This felt just normal.

And when Steve settled Tony back into bed and Tony kept clutching his wrist as if afraid Steve would disappear the moment he let him go; when Steve just gave in and settled on the covers beside him, there was nothing awkward about that either.

 

-

 

To say that Steve had been in love with Tony from the beginning would have been a lie. Iron Man had been his first close friend after waking from the ice, and he’d always been strangely fascinated by Tony Stark, and after learning that the two of them were one and the same, that fascination had only grown, as had their friendship. They hadn’t always agreed on everything, and often enough Tony had done things that had made Steve angry, didn’t fit with Steve’s idea what was right or wrong, but in the end he had always been able to understand Tony’s motivation and he’d always known that if bad came to worse, he could count on his friend to have his back.

Tony had been the one to be there for Steve through every difficult time he’d had, and it had hurt him when Tony hadn’t allowed Steve to be there for him as well when Tony needed it. It had made him feel rejected, like their friendship didn’t mean as much to Tony as it did to Steve, and even though he knew it was irrational, he still felt that way sometimes. Tony was, after all, a super rich genius surrounded by other geniuses, celebrities and, of course, superheroes, and a part of Steve was still stuck in the time when he was a skinny boy from Brooklyn, no one special. What was it that he could offer a man like Tony Stark?

Of course he knew that Tony admired him (without idolizing him, and that was something for which Steve would be eternally grateful), looked up to him, and had always felt inadequate next to not only Captain America, but Steve Rogers as well. Steve knew this, intellectually, because Tony had told him more than once, but he couldn’t understand why, and so he’d tended to forget. To not take Tony seriously when he said something like that.

Well, he couldn’t deny it anymore. Not after he had seen the way Tony had broken down and turned from self-destructive to downright suicidal because Steve had been dead. Not after the way Tony had looked at him after he’d woken up from his nightmare to find Steve gone. It was at the same time humbling, confusing, and more than a little frightening.

Steve could destroy the life and the sanity of another person, an amazing person, simply by chasing to be.

He was only just beginning to see how hard it had been for Tony to fight him, to burn all their bridges and kill their friendship, and how much he must have believed in doing what was necessary to go through with it.

Steve couldn’t tell when _he_ had fallen in love with Tony, when the friendship he felt for the other man had turned into something more. It had been a gradual process and he hadn’t noticed, and when he looked back now it seemed like he had always loved him, even though he knew it wasn’t true.

He only knew for sure that he had loved Tony by the time he’d decided to support the SHRA, because if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much.

There was supposed to be a very fine line between love and hate, and while Steve had always found that saying to be slightly ridiculous considering the few people he genuinely hated included the Red Skull, he could finally see that there was a point to it, too, in some cases.

He also knew on which side of that line he was right now. What he didn’t know, as he looked through the window at the sunset and listened to Tony’s quiet breathing, was what to do with that knowledge. For years, the love had simply been there. It hadn’t been something he thought would be appreciated, so acting on it had never even crossed his mind. Knowing that Tony returned his feelings just made everything more complicated.

The sky above the city was a truly spectacular shade of red. Steve couldn’t look at it without remembering their final battle; the sunset had been beautiful that day, too, but mostly he remembered the red shine of the fires as the city was burning. Remembered most clearly the reflection of the flames on Tony’s armor, the cracks as his helmet broke under the onslaught of Steve’s shield, and the tired acceptance in Tony’s eyes as Steve poised himself for the final strike. The gush of blood and the dawning sense of horror as he realized what he had done. As he reached for Tony’s face with trembling hands that came back red and called his name and understood that he could never, ever fix this. As all his rage left him at once and left nothing in its wake.

And then sheets under his hands as he sat up with a gasp, opening his eyes to darkness. The dream lingered on, strengthened by his disorientation when he found himself in a room not his own, wearing clothes he’d never have worn to sleep. Only after a few seconds did he recognize Tony’s bedroom and remembered what he was doing here. While he had been asleep, night had fallen and the room was dark, and before Steve even knew what he was doing, he reached for the other side of the bed until his hands found a body there, warm and breathing and alive.

He was still trembling when he lay back down, one hand remaining on Tony’s chest for the rest of the night.

 

-

 

Tony had woken up with the mother of all headaches, which was not, in and off itself, unusual. Waking up with the sun shining in his face was, because in this case it meant he had slept for at least ten hours. Or twelve. He couldn’t quite remember when he had gone to bed.

Or how he had gotten there.

There were flashes of memories, most of them embarrassing – it felt like a hangover, and the terrible moment when he realized that what he remembered hadn’t been a dream came when he looked to the left and saw Captain America sleeping beside him in the old pair of sweatpants he used to wear for running, and a shirt that stretched tight over his muscular chest. That was unusual, too; Tony hadn’t woken up next to Steve in a long time, and the last time it had happened, they had both been shackled to a wall and a super villain had stolen most of their clothes.

Super villains liked to do that. In Tony’s case it even made sense since what he was wearing in battle was reportedly deadly, but in Steve’s case it was usually just done out of pettiness. Still, Steve wasn’t easily embarrassed and Tony had found that there were worse things than being in close quarters with a half-naked Steve Rogers.

Now he wasn’t half-naked and the situation was mostly confusing. After a minute of staring at the sleeping man and wondering if he should poke him to see if he was real, Tony quietly left the bed and went to the bathroom to shower, shave and, most importantly, brush his teeth. When he was done, Steve was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Tony wordlessly cleared the bathroom so Steve could use it.

Something about all this was very strange.

While Steve was in the shower, Tony made his way back down to his workshop. He had wasted enough time already, and the nanites, as alien and irritating as they were, at least made some sort of sense – as a problem Tony had to solve, if nothing else.

Actually, nothing about the nanites made a lot of sense, considering they managed to at the same time be there and not. Tony had only managed to even so much as _sense_ _their presence_ with the Extremis after he had adjusted it to the frequency of the dimension the bugs had come from. It confirmed his theory that the bug-incident and the appearance of the statues were connected, but didn’t get him much further when it came to finding out their purpose. Just because he could sense the nanites didn’t mean he was actually able to access them, which had something to do with the fact that they were partially in another dimension and he was not.

Mostly, trying to communicate with them made his nose bleed and hurt his head a lot.

But experience showed that his nose only started bleeding after about half an hour of trying non-stop. This time, he hadn’t quite gotten to that point when a rough touch pulled Tony out of his concentration and made him flinch, instinctively. Bracing himself for an attack. But it was only Steve, a hand on Tony’s shoulder, saying something Tony only caught the end of because he was distracted and little white lights of pain were dancing in front of his eyes.

Steve’s eyes were wide and concerned and very blue. His hand was still on Tony’s shoulder, making Tony think that maybe the touch that pulled him back had not been rough, just unexpected. He was feeling physical touches more intensely because of the fever, anyway. Right now, Steve looked like a little boy who wouldn’t be able to harm a fly. So attentive and earnest as he was looking at Tony like he did in the old days, as if nothing had ever happened between them. As if they could still go back.

It was getting hard to breathe. Nausea was closing Tony’s throat and his breath came in little gasps that made Steve hold him more firmly. Tony had to close his eyes. His head was swimming and he couldn’t look at Steve anymore, he couldn’t.

He’d dreamt of Steve’s dead body this night, again. Of cold skin and bloodless lips and forever. He had dreamt of trying to make a deal, of trying to get Steve back, but he had nothing to bargain with because everything dear to him he had already given away and his soul was worthless.

Waking up beside Steve, alive and with him, had felt more unreal than the nightmare. Tony couldn’t deal with this, with not knowing what this was and when he would lose it.

He needed to figure out these nanites, figure out how to make them go away, and then there was that business deal he’d send Pepper to make and eventually he would have to take care of that, too. And then he had to–

The slap didn’t even sting. It sent a shock through Tony’s fevered body, but it didn’t hurt, just startled him. Tony’s eyes finally focused, and Steve was still there, still looking worried and affectionate.

Only Steve Rogers was able to slap someone with gentleness.

And now he said, “Tony,” with a mix of concern and exasperation. (Tony thought that it was good he had never said his name like this while they were fighting, because committing to the path he’d chosen had been hard enough as it was.)

“What?” Tony asked, resisting the urge to touch Steve again and see if he was real. He was no hallucination, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe Tony was simply going insane.

“What’s wrong? You look terrible.” Steve’s hand, cool and very large, came up to Tony’s forehead and lingered a little longer than it had to. He felt real, looked real, but if he was, Tony didn’t know what to make of this.

He couldn’t allow himself to hope. Never mind the fact that he didn’t deserve hope in the first place, at this point it might simply destroy him. And he still had work to do.

“I’m fine. Just dizzy. Slept too long.” Moving was bad, accelerated the headache, but Tony managed not to let it show as he brushed Steve’s hand away.

“You’re in pain,” Steve said with a disapproving frown, and he had to be an illusion because the real Steve hadn’t paid attention to Tony like that in ages.

Maybe Tony _was_ going inane and Steve was still dead.

Suddenly, it was almost impossible not to throw himself at the other man and hold him close just to see if he was still there. But the hand on his shoulder, the thumb gently stroking his neck had to do. There was something wrong with that, too. Steve had already been tested for being a Skrull, but right there and then, Tony was having doubts.

“I’m fine. I need coffee.” Actually, coffee sounded like an awesome idea. Tony hadn’t had any yet, and looking back, he wasn’t quite sure how that happened. It must have been the shock of waking up to Steve in his bed.

A cup of coffee materialized before him, and Tony was already holding it when he noticed the tray sitting on the edge of his workbench, containing a plate with cut sandwiches and a whole pot full of coffee. Steve must have brought it down. Maybe he even made it himself, rather than bothering Jarvis with it, since that was what Steve did. The coffee, in any case, was perfect: very black and possibly lethal to anyone not addicted to the stuff.

“Marry me,” Tony sighed, and Steve’s lips twitched.

“Are you talking to me or to the coffee?”

“That would depend on your answer. The coffee would never reject me, it loves me.” He drowned the rest of the cup, nearly scalding his throat and not caring. “Are you wearing your pajama?”

“It’s not a pajama, it’s just the clothes I happened to sleep in,” Steve quoted Tony’s own words back at him, grinning a little self-consciously.

“Which is in no way the same thing.” Tony nodded gravely. “They also happen to be the clothes you ran in, if I’m not mistaken.”

Now Steve looked even more self-conscious. He even sniffed his shirt, though Tony could have told him that he’d smelled worse – not to mention the fact that Captain America was a minimum-sweat-runner, since physical exercise simply did not bother his body the way it bothered other people. Like Tony, who had been seriously challenged by the way to the workshop and who was also wearing the shirt he had slept in, combined with the suit pants he had worn the day before, due to the fact that they were the first thing he’d found after getting up. At this point, he thought it was an accomplishment that he was wearing any pants at all.

“I didn’t exactly plan for a longer visit,” Steve admitted. “It was more a matter of going for a run, being yelled at by Carol, and coming here spontaneously.”

Tony suppressed a groan. Of course Carol was responsible for this somehow. It would explain a lot. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she had told Cap to make him try to make peace with Tony, but he should probably ask so he could set it right.

“Whatever she told you, you shouldn’t take it for face value.” There, that was close enough.

“She told me I was an asshole.”

“Okay, take that for face value.” Tony grinned softly to show he was joking.

“Then she told me what you told her about the nanites, and asked why you couldn’t tell me yourself, which made me realize that I’m an asshole. And then I came.”

“Admit it, you’re just scared of going back to the mansion because Carol is waiting there and she’s scary.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Well, if you plan on moving back here, you should probably get some clothes eventually. Not that I wouldn’t lend you some, but I’m afraid they would make you look stupid.”

His eyes lingered a moment on Steve’s broad chest and his strong arms. Tony was by no means small, but Steve’s biceps rivaled Tony’s thighs, and any attempt on his part to wear any of Tony’s shirts, even one of the oversized ones never shown in public, would have tragic consequences for the poor clothes.

Steve seemed to think among the same lines if his grin was any indication. “It would also make you look small by association with the clothes that tore the moment I flexed my muscles.”

“For the sake of my manly pride, you would have to promise not to get into any fights, then.”

“Which means that Galactus would show up the moment I finished dressing to challenge me to an arm wresting match.”

“So for the sake of protecting the world from Galactus, I can’t let you borrow my clothes,” Tony concluded. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be, after you looked so adorable in mine.”

“Of all the impressions my outfits were supposed to give you, _adorable_ was never among them,” Tony said without thinking, and then he had to bury his face in his coffee mug when he became aware what had just come out of his mouth.

Steve, bless him, said nothing. He just got up and silently walked out of the room. Or so Tony, not looking up, thought, until that large hand covered his in a tentative gesture and he looked up to meet those earnest blue eyes he still couldn’t believe were the same that had looked at him with hatred not so long ago.

“Tony,” Steve said softly. He sounded a little unsure. “Can we pretend that we never fought? Just for a day? And see how that goes?”

This was the moment where Tony should have pointed out that it was Steve who hadn’t wanted to pretend. But he wasn’t quite that strong.

“Okay.” He swallowed, his throat dry and scratchy. Then he got to his feet and straightened, deciding to tackle this head on before any kind of awkward silence could develop. “Then go home and grab your shield, Captain. I need to go to the sewers and there’s no one I would rather drag down to the stinking darkness than you.”

 

-

 

The good thing about the sewers was that he and Tony were still alone, which Steve appreciated at this point. He wasn’t quite sure this whole “Act like nothing happened” experiment would go so very well with the influence of other people. (But then, when Tony had come to the mansion to lecture them on the statues, _everyone_ had acted like nothing had happened, so maybe it was just Steve.)

The bad thing about the sewers was that they were the sewers, and not exactly the place for an intimate conversation – or for breathing. Tony, of course, was safe inside his suit with the independent oxygen supply, moving through the dark with barely a sound; something that had always amazed Steve considering the weight of the armor and the fact that inside the heavier new models Tony needed hydraulic help to even walk.

Apart from the stink and the darkness, there was also the unending sense of threat that came from not being able to see beyond the light of his torch and the fact that Steve could never quite tell if the sound he heard was dripping water or the footsteps of someone following them. Here, too, Tony was at an advantage, because the sensors of his suit gave him information about their surroundings Steve could only wish he had.

Therefore, he had no qualms about letting Tony take the lead for once. “You take me to the nicest places,” he muttered.

“Only the best for you, darling.” Tony sounded amused, even though the voice filter of the suit. So far this pretending thing was going pretty well, Steve thought.

Of course it helped that even when he’d been mad at Tony, falling into this kind of behavior had come naturally and staying mad had been a constant struggle. Which of course had made Steve even angrier. It was actually nice to have an excuse not to be.

At least Steve already knew the way down to the sub-subway where the nest of the bugs had been located. Even in the darkness he found the way, but there still was nothing familiar about the area. It only got worse the deeper they went, this feeling of being an unwanted intruder, only barely tolerated and not for long. The world of daylight above seemed to be very far away.

Eventually they reached the spot: the fallen ceiling, the broken eggs, the crushed body of a bug, nothing of that had changed since Steve had last been here, nothing had been touched. Apart from the inevitable decay, it would probably still look the same in an hundred years.

“You get what you came here for?” Steve didn’t even try not to sound grumpy. It was, after all, cold, dark, and damp, and while the air didn’t stink like it did a few levers further up, it still was anything but fresh.

“Give me a moment.” No reason to be impatient, no. After all, Tony was safe and dry inside his armor, could see everything and didn’t have to fear suddenly being stabbed in the back by something living in the walls.

Steve stayed close to one, feeling better with something solid in his back since he couldn’t see a damn thing outside that narrow beam of light. He watched as Tony wandered up and down the rather short stretch of tunnel that the bugs had used as a nest. Eventually he came back to signal Steve that they could leave.

“So,” Steve whispered as they walked back. “Tell me coming here was actually worth it.”

There was no actual reason for whispering, but when Tony replied, his modulated voice also was quieter than usual, which did nothing to make Steve feel safer.

“I got a clear reading on the place. I was right: It’s not from here. The entire stretch of tunnel was replaced by its equivalent from another universe. But it wasn’t the same universe the bugs originally came from. Hence the scanners looking for anything from their home-dimension not picking up on it.”

“So what does that mean for us?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s get back upstairs before I make a presentation, okay?”

Steve had no problem with that plan.

 

-

 

It was almost evening by the time they arrived at the surface, the trip having taken hours. Steve had lost all sense of time down there. When he blinking crawled into the light of the setting sun, he wasn’t even sure if he was surprised that it was already this late, or that it wasn’t night already.

They took the same exit Steve had emerged from with Wolverine and Spiderwoman the first time he had gone down there. The statue was still looking over the opening, tall and strange. When they walked past it, it seemed to turn, as if to follow them with its invisible eyes.

Steve shuddered despite himself.

“You noticed _that_ , huh?” Tony commented, and even through the voice-filter, he sounded grim.

 

-

 

Back at the mansion, they didn’t call for a meeting. There would be no point yet, Tony said, because the others couldn’t be bothered to care about anything to do with those statues. It was hard enough to even make Steve take this seriously – the more people were involved, the less likely it was that any of them would listen to anything he told them. Like a teacher trying to explain nuclear physics to a bunch of school children who would rather throw little balls of paper at each other than pay attention.

Steve didn’t appreciate the comparison.

He did, however, accept that Tony was right, so after they got to the mansion, they disappeared in Steve’s room for some privacy, even though that meant risking new and improved mockery from Peter. There, Tony shed the armor and sat on the edge of the bed in his rumbled shirt and pants and beneath that the golden under armor which for some reason he hadn’t retracted yet. Steve himself merely dropped the scale mail and leaned his shield against the wall with the intention of cleaning it a lot in the near future.

“So,” he said, sitting down beside Tony; not close enough to touch, but close enough that he could if he wanted to. “What do we know?”

“The statues and the bugs are from another dimension,” Tony summed up. “The tunnels the bugs were nesting it are also from another universe, but not the same one. I actually suspected something like that. That universe had tunnels just like ours does, in almost exactly the same location; that indicates that their Earth is very similar to ours, and their history probably moved among the same lines, to a certain extent. Well, other universes are more Richards’ area of expertise. I’m going to have him take a closer look at that as soon as he’s back from his field trip to outer space, but so far this’ll have to do. Anyway, the bugs and the nanites are completely different from anything native to this world. They don’t fit.”

“How did the tunnels get here?”

“Accidentally, I would think. If anyone moved a part of another universe into ours with purpose, it probably wouldn’t be _that_ part.”

“Actually, it makes sense. No one noticed it there. Maybe they were moving the bugs over here in the hope that they would eat all the population.” It was a grim thought, but not one Steve could ignore. Even though it was unlikely, as Tony’s next words confirmed:

“Except the shift happened decades ago, according to the armor’s readings. Not to mention that someone trying to take over our planet would probably know enough about it to understand that a couple of oversized bugs are hardly a considerable threat, especially in New York.”

Steve nodded. As invasions went, it would have been one of the more idiotic ones. “How do the statues fit into that?”

“That’s the question. They are from the same dimension as the bugs, but not the tunnel. It seems like they went to that other universe first and then came here, but why, I can’t tell. The bugs coming here might have been a coincidence, but the statues – the nanites – are definitely acting with purpose. What I don’t know is if they just followed the bugs after they fell through or if the relocation of the tunnel was a byproduct of their crossing. Both are actually unlikely, considering that the bugs came here at least thirty years before the nanites.”

“Or the nanites were here long before we ever noticed them.” Talking about them was a constant battle against apathy, but it needed to be said. “Maybe whatever awakened those bugs also called up the nanites. I mean, we didn’t even notice them before _you_ did, so who knows how long they have been here unseen, in different shapes.”

“If so, why come out of hiding now? The way they handle it, someone was bound to notice eventually, perception filter or not. These things don’t exactly do subtle. They seem to be okay with standing in plain sight and hoping no one will realize they weren’t there yesterday.”

“What’s with the shapes, anyway?” The thought came to Steve out of the blue, but it seemed important suddenly. “They are formations of nanites. They could take any shape, and yet it’s always the same high pillar with too many edges. Not a shape we’d easily overlook if we’d actually pay attention. So why this?”

“I was wondering that myself. All I can assume it’s that it’s either a popular shape where they came from, or whoever programmed them just randomly made them assume it.”

Steve frowned. “Programmed them?”

“They are very, very, very small robots, Steve. Somebody had to construct them, and give them a purpose. Unless they gained an independent will, re-programmed themselves and killed everyone. Like in Terminator.” He frowned as well, as if he were actually considered that possibility. Maybe he was.

“So we've got a number of facts, but no conclusions we can actually do anything with.”

“I'm working on it.” Tony's frown got even deeper. “They seem to react to me for whatever reason. Maybe I can do something with that.”

“Or maybe they figured out you can acknowledge their existence – through, say, the fact that you keep poking them – and are working on a way to get rid of you,” Steve warned.

Tony dismissed the thought with an unconcerned gesture. “I considered that. But they are bllions upon billions of nano-machines that could kill the entire planet in a matter of minutes. Killing me wouldn't have been a challenge at any point, if they wanted to.”

“Kill the entire planet?” Steve echoed. “And you didn't think that was worth mentioning before?”

“I did, actually. You just didn't pay attention. Which I knew, by the way. I just decided to say it anyway, because I find this is the kind of thing that deserves to be said. Repeatedly. So here it is again: nanites are tiny. So tiny you can't usually see them with the naked eye. For them to appear as a large, solid object, let alone a lot of large solid objects, there have to be countless of nanites. So many they don't even need to be particularly sophisticated to turn into little killers; all they have to do is be breathed in and clog our blood vessels. But I don't think that's their primary purpose,” Tony added before Steve could properly observe the thought – these things all over the globe – as something to be concerned about. “So far, all they've done is watch us. Hence them being placed in locations with a lot of people passing every day. The question is: what will they do when they are done watching?”

“Maybe they will just move on. Perhaps there is no threat and they really just want to learn.”

“Yeah...” Tony stretched the word as if he wanted to tell Steve why his suggestion was stupid, but in the end he said, “We'll know more once I managed to access them with the Extremis.”

“Let me guess,” Steve said sourly, “attemptibg that is what made your nose bleed the other day.”

Tony looked a litte guilty. Or embarassed – Steve couldn't quite tell. “That happens.”

“Well, it _shouldn’t_.”

“It’s just a side-effect of overstressing the Extremis a little.” Tony sounded irritated now, which as Steve knew could be a defense reaction – or genuine irritation over the fact that Steve didn’t see his point. “Which, as it happens, is necessary to get to know these things a little better, because they may be machines, but they are machines from _another dimension_ , which makes getting on their level a little taxing. And even when I finally get there, which hasn’t happened a lot yet, I still have to get through the firewall created by a pretty massive hive mind. Which, yeah, is difficult. And exhausting. So if you have a better idea how to access them, I’m all ears.” He was looking at Steve now with open challenge in is eyes, daring him to try and make a suggestion.

“There are other computers in the world,” Steve pointed out. “Sophisticated ones, and most importantly ones that are not connected to _your brain_.”

“The Extremis is the most sophisticated computer on the planet, and the fact that it’s connected to my brain is the only thing that actually gives us something like a chance to do this,” Tony insisted.

“How do you know if you’ve never even considered anything else?” Steve’s voice rose with his level of frustration. “This is typical, Tony: You just assume that you know best, and that you’re the only one who can do this without even giving anyone else a chance!”

Tony opened his mouth to reply, closed it again, and looked at Steve through large, blue eyes. Steve found himself noticing, absurdly, that his lashes were very long and dark.

He also looked unexpectedly hurt, and disappointed. “I thought we wanted to pretend for a day.”

He sounded disappointed, too, but also like he never expected anything else in the first place.

“This has nothing to do with what happened with the SHRA!” Steve snapped. “You’ve _always_ been this way, and it’s driving me crazy. Would it kill you to accept help for a change? Maybe to find a way to deal with this that will not come down to you destroying yourself?”

“It’s the only way, and you know it! Or you would if you actually had any idea what you’re talking about.”

“ _How_ would I know? It’s not like you have a good track record with thing like this.”

“Oh, like you are so much better! Tell me, Cap, how often exactly did you risk you life, or downright try to sacrifice yourself, for something that needed to be done? I lost count somewhere in the lower hundreds.”

“I do that as a last resort. When I have exhausted all other options and there is no other way. Whereas _you_ search for a solution until you come up with one that will likely kill you, and then you _stop looking_!”

“I do what I have to! What, you expect me to just sit by and do nothing even though I could, while people are dying, just to avoid some personal risk? I may not measure up to your definition of being a hero, but at least let me try to measure up to mine.”

Steve wasn’t even going to touch that one. “What I want you to do, Tony,” he said, keeping his voice level with effort, “is to at least try to save _everyone_ , instead of just everyone _else_.”

“I’m not on your team for some elaborate attempt to commit suicide, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Tony looked away, his shoulders tense, his body language screaming defensiveness now.

“I’m worried about _you_ , Tony!” Steve threw his head back to look at the ceiling and take a deep breath. To hell with the pretending, he decided. “If you didn’t jump at the first opportunity to sacrifice yourself and play the bad guy to the extent were we all forgot how much we loved you, we would never have gotten into that mess in the first place.”

“What, you wanted me to sacrifice _you_?” Tony asked back, his voice colder now. “Sacrifice Peter, or Carol, or any of the others, to end up on a dissection table, or mowed down by Sentinels? Or endanger the people on the street, perhaps? You know, the ones whom to protect is actually our reason for being superheroes? Tell me, who do you think I should have sacrificed instead? Because no matter what you want to believe, there was always going to be a price.”

“You should have asked for help instead of doing this on your own.”

“And brought you down with me? So we could be hated _together_? So the others could follow you because they trusted you, and you’d always have to live with knowing you led them on a path you didn’t believe in by using that faith they had in you and their conviction that it can’t be wrong if you do it?”

“Bill died,” Steve pointed out, bitterly. “ _I_ died, for that matter. You really think ‘bringing me down’ with you would have been worse?”

“If you can still look at yourself in the mirror,” Tony whispered, “then the answer is yes.”

Steve didn’t actually want to fight. But they needed to work through this if they ever wanted to go back to being friends, and that would require a lot of fighting, and a lot of angry yelling.

And maybe Steve should begin to get used to the sight of Tony, so defeated, self-loathing and determined, breaking his heart.

Or to the strong urge to shake Tony, or punch him, battling with the equally strong urge to take him in his arms.

This time, his violent site lost, and when Steve took hold of Tony’s shoulders, it was only to turn him around so he was fully facing Steve, and his touch was gentle. “You shouldn’t have made that choice on your own. It was my decision. If I thought it wasn’t worth it, I could still have turned you down.”

Tony’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “No,” he said quietly. “You couldn’t.”

Of course, Steve would never find that out for himself, because Tony hadn’t let him. “Oh, fuck you, Tony,” he said, finally overwhelmed by too any emotions. He even considered, for a second, kissing Tony, but this was not the time nor the place, so he drew him close instead, until Tony’s face was pressed against his shoulder.

Steve rarely cursed, and even more rarely did he use the f-word, but it was appropriate here, he thought. Tony surely thought it was amusing – unless the sound he stifled into Steve’s shirt was actually a sob.

But he was hugging Steve back, hanging on to him as if for dear life, and that was something, in any case.

He was also trembling softly, either from physical weakness or emotional stress or both. Steve had to remind himself that Tony was actually sick, and that the last couple of days had been very trying. He wasn’t good at dealing with emotions on a good day, but what he was good at was not showing them, and pushing away people who got too close to them. Tony more or less, possibly, sort of, crying into Steve’s shoulder was very telling.

When he pulled away, though, his eyes were dry. “I need to get back to work,” he said calmly.

“Get some rest first. You need it.”

“I slept for half a day. I’m fine. And this needs to be done.”

Steve didn’t actually think so, but he was used to not seeing the threat by now and knew he shouldn’t listen to himself on this matter. “At least promise me that you won’t start any self-destructive anti-nanite plan without telling me,” he asked earnestly, his hand somehow coming to rest on Tony’s cheek.

For a second, Tony leaned into the touch, before he shrugged. “Sure.” He stood and the pieces of armor came flying towards him, assembling around his body. It would never stop looking weird to Steve. “I’ll let you know if I find anything worth mentioning.”

“Tony.” Steve took hold of his friend’s hand, now hidden by the metal gauntlet. “ _Promise_ me.”

The look Tony gave him was startled and vaguely afraid. But he nodded, once, before the helmet closed around his head and he stalked out of the room.

 

-

 

Once Tony had found the right frequency, it shouldn’t have been that hard. He should just have been locked on to it and capable of concentrating all his power on finding a way into the nanties’ hive mind, But the dimensional otherness that seemed to surround the things like a cloak was nearly impossible to hold on to. There were not even words to describe it, since no language on Earth ever had to deal with this kind of problem.

But Tony was getting there. His head was splitting with pain, but strangely, the pain helped him to hold on; it got worse, the more firmly he was locked onto the dimensional frequency, so whenever he lost his hold, he only had to shift his mind in the direction that hurt most. And the longer he managed to hold on, the better he could sense the nanites.

By now they were the equivalent of a million voices talking on the other side of a door, too mingled and quiet to make out any individual words, and also talking in an unknown language. What Tony got was that the tiny machines worked only as a hive mind, not as individual pieces, and that they knew he was watching them and were watching right back.

Apart from denying him access, the little buggers hadn’t done anything aggressive to ward him off yet. On the other hand, they didn’t exactly have to, since the effort it took to even look at them, virtually speaking, had been all the protection they needed so far.

Tony became used to the pain. He was damn good at ignoring it. In the end, it was not the work with the nanites that put a serious dampener to his efforts, but his otherwise poor health, which he had also been pretty good at ignoring.

He was lost in lines of computer code that was alien and strange, yet still familiar, using the ultimate language of logic. Tony loved logic. It never failed him, even when everything else did.

He still couldn’t really see through the wall that was the nanites’ hive mind, but that wall was made of millions of strands of data as they communicated with each other. Like electromagnetic pulses in a brain. And he could make sense of it, almost. Unfortunately, they were still too alien to easily figure out using references from this planet. Also, the nanites in Tony’s workshop were but a very, very small group of barely a million, and their language was limited. He could sense their connection to the rest, though, even if he could not yet decipher it, and remembered the way these had broken off and come with him willingly when he touched them.

He was definitely under observation. This was, most likely, some kind of test, though Tony didn’t yet know what would happen if he failed or passed it.

Probably nothing good. It was never anything good. But with these things presenting a very real threat to the planet, it was far too late to stop now.

Maybe the task was “Figure out how to stop us or we will kill the population of this planet.” It would fit, in its simplicity, with the very clear structure of the way these nanites communicated with each other.

And in that structure, Tony found his way in. Or he thought he did. There was a pattern, complex looking but in the end very simple, through which he thought he could send his mind into theirs and finally anchor himself and grasp everything. But before he could even try, his body that was sitting mostly forgotten on the chair in front of the nanite-case was wrecked by a coughing fit. The sudden movement made the pain in his head flare up to unbearable levels and the white lights of pain that had been dancing in front of his eyes all the time turned black and swallowed everything.

 

-

 

When he came to, his head was hurting less. Significantly less. But it still hurt far too much to actually lift it, or any other part of his body, for that matter.

He felt dizzy and weak, like a truck was parked on top of him, pressing him down. Not an altogether unfamiliar feeling as of late, but it had never before been this bad.

Breathing kind of hurt, too.

He could sense the Extremis and all the data it offered like a constant hum at the back of his mind, but every time he so much as thought about accessing it, the pain got worse and he felt like he was suffocating. Maybe he had broken something, after all.

The first thing he did, even before opening his eyes, was go through the Fibonacci sequence up to the seven digit numbers in a hurry. Since he was a child, this had been his way of checking himself for brain damage after a particularly stupid stunt. Rationally, he knew that it was a lousy test, but it always calmed him down some to know that he as least could still do math.

The first thing he did after opening his eyes was retch. The light was too bright, the pain flared up, and the nausea he had been able to ignore for so long finally won over. Lying on his back and unable to move, he probably would have suffocated on his own vomit if strong hands hadn’t turned him over to his side and allowed him to spit the thin bile into a basin under his face. They made everything even worse, but they also saved him from a somewhat undignified end.

Afterwards, he was turned back and spend a lot of time just breathing. It got easier after something hard and uncomfortably familiar was pressed to his face, but Tony still needed a moment to recognize it as an oxygen mask, or realize that he was lying in a bed – probably his own.

He didn’t need very long to recognize Steve. The “I am Captain America and I Disapprove” frown on his face was pretty damn distinctive, even though right now it was kind of blurred. Pepper was harder to make out, mostly because she was tiny and Steve almost completely hid her from view until she stepped forward.

She also said something, but Tony couldn’t make it out. Huh. Maybe he had fried his brain, after all. He looked at Steve for help, but Steve only looked pissed, and maybe a little heartbroken. Tony wanted to apologize – clearly he had done soothing wrong, there – but when he tried to speak, he just felt sick again, and then everything fell away into darkness.

 

-

 

It was a full day before Tony first woke up from his deep unconsciousness, almost two before he woke up fully and for more than a few minutes. The time in between, he spend drifting in and out of awareness, being sick and in pain. Steve thought it was only fair that he suffered a little, after scaring the crap out of him, but mostly it just kind of hurt to see Tony this way. Again.

Pepper Potts was a lot more vocal about how Tony deserved everything he was going through for being such a moron, but she also cried a little, so Steve thought she was probably mostly worried, like him. It couldn’t have been a nice experience to come into Tony’s penthouse to for a final talk before she left for Beijing, only to see Steve storm out of the elevator with her boss and friend hanging motionless in his arms, bleeding from his nose and ears. It might even have been worse than finding him on the floor where he had fallen God knew how long ago had been for Steve, thought he wouldn’t have bet on it.

He had lived through many a bad thing, and little was even coming close. Especially since Tony’s heartbeat and breathing had been so weak that the first minute or so Steve had been convinced he was dead.

Hank Pym had come over after Steve had called him in a panic, and Hank McCoy from the X-Men, since he actually knew a bit about human medicine. They’d run a few tests, scanned Tony’s brain for hemorrhaging, tested him for brain damage, and in the end came to the conclusion that he had momentarily overheated the computer in his brain and otherwise knocked himself out with exhaustion and too-long ignored sickness. He needed rest, and a lot of it. If he got that, he should be fine.

As prognoses went, this one didn’t sound too bad. Steve would have felt better about it if Beast hadn’t brought an array of equipment to position around Tony’s bed, like a monitor for his heartbeat, and an oxygen mask because he “seemed to be having difficulties breathing”. It was all just a precaution, of course, but it still looked as frightening as always to see Tony pale and still and surrounded by beeping and hissing machines.

The order not to leave him unobserved at any time hadn’t helped either.

Pepper eventually had to leave for her trip. Before she went, she gave Steve a phone number and threatened him with some rather undesirable things should he forget to call her if anything happened. On the second day, James Rhodes dropped in. He sat with Tony a little bit, talking to him as if his friend were actually awake enough to understand anything he said, and then left again, also giving Steve a number and looking just as worried as he had when he had come.

It was interesting how they all seemed to be convinced that Steve was going to be there for whatever was going to happen. Interesting, but not unfounded, as Steve had no intentions of going anywhere.

He needed to be there the moment Tony fully woke up, after all. Just so he could yell at him a lot.

 

-

 

The first thing Tony did after waking up enough to do so was pull the IV line out of his arm. Or at least he tried. Jarvis, who was with him at the time, actually managed to stop him, and without using physical force – something for which Steve could only admire him.

Steve came in only minutes later. By the time he entered the room to take over watching the sick man, Tony was propped up on a multitude of pillows and sipping water from a glass he was able to hold only with Jarvis’ help.

At least he didn’t seem to have thrown up again. That was a definite improvement.

Jarvis left shortly after, seeming to understand that Steve needed a few minutes alone with Tony. Tony fumbled for the IV the moment he was gone, but this time Steve stopped him, with a hand to his arm and the fact that even on a good day, he was stronger than Tony.

Tony glared at him, but he was miserable and weak and it only looked pathetic. The dark shadows around his red-rimmed eyes just underlined how pale he was.

“You actually need that,” Steve told him after he pried Tony’s hand away from the needle in his arm. He kept his voice down, since McCoy had warned them that Tony probably wouldn’t be able to handle loud noises very well for a while. “And you know why you need that? Because you didn’t give your body any food, and bodies don’t like that very much.”

“Smartass.” Tony’s voice was hoarse, which was no surprise at all. He looked like he was in pain and Steve thought it served him well.

“You promised not to do that,” he reminded his friend.

“Not to do what?”

He couldn’t even remember. Steve wished he could say he was surprised.

“You promised you wouldn’t try anything stupid or self-destructive.”

“It wasn’t stupid.” Tony somehow managed to sound petulant while having basically no voice at all. “It was necessary. And not self-destructive at all.”

“It was not? You nearly _died_ , Tony!” Steve’s voice rose a little because he couldn’t help it, but he immediately felt guilty when Tony flinched.

“I didn’t –”

“You did,” Steve insisted, but Tony went on, ignoring him.

“– and for something to be self-destructive, it has to be done with purpose. Would you actually believe me if I said that I didn’t know it would knock me out? I was a little careless there, but I wasn’t actively risking my life.”

“You were careless with something that could have killed you. That’s you risking your life.”

Tony looked like he really didn’t feel like discussing semantics with Steve right now. “I didn’t mean to.” It sounded a bit like an apology and Steve really wished he could believe him.

“Could we try not to fight for a while,” Steve asked tiredly. He hadn’t slept much in the last couple of days, kept awake by worry and nightmares. The last time he had had a good night’s sleep was when he’d shared the bed with Tony three days ago, which maybe should have told him something. Not that it mattered right now, as Steve curling up around Tony would have gotten in the way of the wires measuring Tony’s heartbeat…

…The same wires that Tony was currently pulling off with stiff and weak fingers. Steve sighed, but didn’t stop him. Instead he shut off the machine that was beginning to frantically beep in protest. As long as Tony left the IV alone, this was acceptable. Steve knew he was going to be okay, now.

Which reminded him of something. “Can I trust you to not be a brat about this and behave if I leave you alone for five minutes, or do I have to get Jarvis to watch you? I need to make a couple of phone calls, because even if you have a hard time believing it, there are people out there who’ll actually be happy to learn that you’re not dead.”

“Yes, the board of directors,” Tony said dryly. “Me dying does horrible things to the stock.”

Steve ignored the joke; he really wasn’t open to this kind of humor at the moment.

Rhodes was on a mission somewhere; his phone went straight to voice mail. Steve left the essentials – that Tony was alive and coherent – and told him to call Tony himself for more details. Pepper accepted his call in a matter of seconds; she was in a meeting, so they kept it short, but the relief was audible in her voice. After he informed Carol, Steve was done with telling Tony’s friends, which was kind of sad, but also saved time. Steve didn’t really trust Tony not to be an idiot while unobserved.

One last call went out to McCoy, who promised to drop in as soon as he could and check Tony over. Altogether, Steve wasn’t gone for ten minutes, but it was still long enough for Tony to hurt himself.

To his credit, he hadn’t pulled out the IV. But he was curled up on his side when Steve entered the room, clutching his head and making soft noises that Steve only after a moment identified as whimpers of pain. After a second in which concern fought for dominance with panic, Steve sat down beside him, stroking his back until gradually Tony relaxed and stopped trembling.

“Ouch,” he whispered.

“You tried to use Extremis, right? Beast said you shouldn’t. Not until you’ve healed. It’s going to hurt.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Maybe Steve should have warned him. But then, he had thought that Tony would have the sense to know this on his own. “For a supposed genius, you do a lot of moronic things.”

“Not like I have a choice. I lost two days, Steve! Who knows how much longer I have before the nanites become active? I have to get behind them, and I was almost there before I passed out.”

“Exactly. It almost killed you! Maybe this should be your cue to stop trying.”

Tony groaned, but this time it was not in pain. “You forgot again, didn’t you? Global threat? Possible death of all that lives? You don’t think preventing that is worth a little headache?”

Steve opened his mouth and closed it before he could say that it wasn’t. “You’re right,” he said instead. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with all of this on your own.”

“Not your fault, Cap. And as soon as I took care of this, I promise I’ll take a break. But this needs to be done.”

“If you do it now, it’s going to kill you,” Steve pointed out. “I’m not saying to drop out of the project, but give it two more days. You said you were almost there. It can wait two days, just enough for your synapses to be healed enough that finishing this won’t finish _you_.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“And you know I can’t let you kill yourself. If you die over this, there will be no one left to even recognize the threat, let alone be able to fight it. Wait until you have a chance of winning.” He thought that was a reasonable request, but Tony didn’t look convinced, so Steve sighed and added, “Rhodes told me there’s a device that can keep you from accessing Extremis at all.”

Tony, if possible, went even paler. “You wouldn’t.”

“I’d rather not,” Steve admitted. Especially after he had learned what Tony had done to himself the last time they used it. “But I will, if you force me to.”

“Steve…”

“Tony. I’m right, and you know it. If you try again right now, can you honestly say for sure that it will not kill you?”

Tony didn’t say anything, because of course he couldn’t. He still didn’t look happy. Steve understood. He would have understood even better if those damn statues had let him.

When the silence began to stretch a little too long, he leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to Tony’s dry lips. “Go back to sleep,” he said quietly. “The sooner you’re rested, the sooner you can get back to work. I promise I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

Tony looked at him with the wide eyed stare that Steve had come to be used to: a little startled, a little sad. Maybe not entirely convinced any of this was happening.

“We could knock out Extremis so you’d know I’m actually real,” Steve offered. “When this is over. For now, sleep. Then you can kick those invaders and we’ll tackle everything else.”

Tony still looked sad. But he nodded, in the end, and allowed Steve to carefully settle him back on the sheets. Within minutes, he was asleep.

Now all the wires had been cleared out of the way, Steve didn’t feel bad at all for settling beside him and drawing him close, so he would know at once if anything was wrong.

 

-

 

Another twelve hours later, Tony actually felt better. He woke up feeling mostly rested, mostly pain-free, and to Steve running his fingers through his hair.

Maybe finding a way to make sure all this was really happening wouldn’t be so bad an idea. It _felt_ real, and usually Tony could tell when he was hallucinating. But it also was so damn unlikely.

He wanted to ask Steve what he was thinking, but didn’t feel up to the conversation that would follow. Instead, he allowed himself to relax and enjoy the moment for another minute or so.

This was the second time now he’d slept with Steve beside him, and neither time had gone remotely the way he had allowed himself to fantasize about every now and then. Surprisingly enough, he was fine with that – mostly because he wasn’t really up to anything more than lying here and having his hair stroked.

Steve must have noticed he was awake, but apparently was willing to indulge him. It wasn’t much of a surprise (if Tony ignored the fact that his very presence here was a surprise), since he had that unfortunate tendency to dismiss the danger they were all in.

Tony did not, and his ability to relax was diminished greatly by the thought of what could have happened while he was here taking a nap.

“I take it the world still exists, then?” It came out a lot less casual and a lot hoarser than he’d intended.

Steve chuckled. “I promised I’d wake you in case of imminent apocalypse, didn’t I?”

“Well, yeah, but you could have ignored the apocalypse, and that would have sucked.”

“Unlikely.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me you never ignored an apocalypse before.”

“I would, but then, I’ve been living with you for a while now and I got pretty good at ignoring the stuff you do in your lap sometimes.”

“My lap is a contained space outside the laws of space and time. But I’m going to let that stand, as it actually supports my point.” Tony grinned as he pushed himself up on his elbows. “God, I need to shave.”

Steve, sitting with his back against the headboard and holding an open book in his lap, shifted his hand from the top of Tony’s head to his face and ran his thumb over the stubble on his cheek. The touch was so unexpectedly gentle that it took an effort of will for Tony not to close his eyes and lean into it. “I’ll make breakfast. Or get Jarvis to make you breakfast. I think he’s been waiting of a chance to mother hen you for far too long.”

“Jarvis just wants to mother hen _someone_. You can’t become a butler without a certain predisposition for it – or the ability to look really, really disapproving if your employer’s kid blows up the kitchen appliances. I told him to move back to the mansion. God knows you guys need plenty of both.”

“I think he prefers to be here. He doesn’t keep doing this job because you pay him so well, you know.”

“But I do pay him very, very well,” Tony protested as he sat up fully. He did. Edwin Jarvis was almost certainly the most well paid butler in the world, and he deserved every penny for putting up with Tony and the Avengers and all the shit they put him through. Although Tony had no idea what he actually did with the money, as he’d never seen the man have much of a private life. Of course, Tony was kind of bad at paying attention to that kind of thing, and he felt it would have insulted Jarvis’ British sensibilities or something to ask.

“Go shave.” Steve gave him a playful shove in the direction of the bathroom that was so careful Tony thought about punching him just to make a point. “I’ll take care of the food, one way or another.”

Tony hesitated. He really, really didn’t have time for this. Not yet. Not with this threat hanging over them.

He would feel really bad if the world ended while he was having breakfast.

Steve seemed the read his thoughts. “Sleep alone isn’t going to keep you alive, Tony,” he pointed out. “Get some food into your system and you might actually be capable of doing your job.” When Tony still hesitated, he added, “There will be coffee.”

“You say the sweetest things to me,” Tony replied and gave in.

 

-

 

He hurried, but he also was a little bit weak in the knees (and arms, and back) and the quick shower and shaving and brushing his teeth (in case Cap wanted to kiss him again, couldn’t have Captain America die of Tony Stark’s foul breath, that would be ridiculous) took more than ten minutes. When he was done and stepped out of his room dressed in a shirt and jeans that had mysteriously materialized on his now neatly made bad, Steve was in the kitchen holding a cup of coffee, and Jarvis was making pancakes.

Tony wasn’t sure he could handle pancakes at them moment. He did steal Steve’s coffee, though.

“There was a cup waiting just for you, you know.”

“Yours is better.”

“It’s from the same can.”

“But it’s yours.” Tony gulped it down, nearly burning his tongue, and immediately felt better. He couldn’t remember when he had had hot coffee the last time. Maybe that was why he had collapsed. Caffeine withdrawal. Something like that could become a problem.

Cap placed a hand on his back as Tony sank down on the chair beside him, touching him just lightly. The whole scene was disconcertingly domestic, Tony suddenly realized.

“I think I preferred it when you were yelling at me,” he grunted. “At least then I knew where we were at.”

Steve withdrew his hand. “I agree things changed pretty quickly, but you weren’t in the condition for the coherent, adult conversations we would have needed for a gradual change. If you want to, I can yell at you some more when this is over.”

Jarvis came over with the pancakes. His face was blank. Tony would never stop being amazed by how much disapproval he could convey with a blank face.

The food, as expected, was a bit much for him to take. He managed a couple of bites before he had to give up. Steve, hating for food to go to waste, ate his leftovers, while Jarvis provided Tony with the hot, colorless drink he had often give him as food-replacement in the last couple of weeks and didn’t stop staring at him until he’d drank it.

“You know, this really doesn’t get better the more often you have to drink it,” Tony told him.

“I wouldn’t know about that, Sir,” Jarvis replied pointedly.

Steve grinned into his coffee and pretended to be cute.

Tony stood abruptly. “I have to get back to work,” he announced. “See you later.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at Steve. “Don’t you, I don’t know, have a team to lead? Or is this the point where you yell at me where Jarvis can’t hear you?”

“Only if you’re being an idiot.” The smile was gone from Steve’s face. He just looked so goddamn earnest again. It was hardly a surprise that everyone always followed him without question. Tony himself had a hard time not to, sometimes. “I’ll just sit in the back and make sure you’re not overdoing it again. Be good and you won’t notice I’m there.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” This was getting a little old now. “I’m not some kid you have to watch!”

“No, you just act like one.” Steve didn’t even raise his voice, and yeah, Tony did tend to forget that as endearing as his school teacher attitude could be, it could also be so very annoying. “As it happens, you’re the only one who can do something about this threat you keep talking about, but you’re also lacking any kind of self-preservation instinct, so it seems like a good idea to look out for you – in the interest of the planet.”

The last thing Tony needed was for Steve to hover while he worked. Especially since, no matter how careful he was, accessing the nanites _was_ going to hurt. It _would_ make it nose bleed. Maybe he’d even scream. But Tony did know his limits and he knew what to avoid this time. Steve did not. He would try to force Tony to abort the project far too early.

And then there would be yelling, all right.

“Last time I was only overwhelmed because I wasn’t in top condition, physically,” he tried to argue his way out of Steve’s babysitting attempts without a shouting match in the kitchen. “I’m much better now. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re still running a fever and you were just defeated by a pile of pancakes.”

Tony opened his mouth, closed it again while he tried to come up with a reply Jarvis would not take offense on, opened it again and was saved from actually having to say something by Steve’s phone ringing.

Steve went into Leader of the Avengers mode immediately, all business as he accepted the call, and Tony would have gone slightly hysteric if it had been a spam call for Viagra. But Steve’s face turned grim as he replied that he’d be there as soon as possible, and Tony’s stomach sank.

“What is it?” he asked, already reaching out for his armor with the Extremis. There was still pain when he used it, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before.

“Nothing important,” Steve said, dropping the phone back in his pocket. “There’s something weird going on in Central Park. We’ll go check it out, but it doesn’t seem to be anything dramatic.”

“Just weird.” Tony nodded. They were quite used to weird stuff happening basically anywhere, but normal people tended to get nervous when sky turned green or trees started talking to them, even if they were friendly trees. He let go of the armor again, tried to reach for a camera in the park to check the situation and let it be when the pain in his head warned him not to do that while Steve was watching. “If it’s nothing dramatic, mind if I drop out of this one?”

“I wasn’t going to let you come anyway. You’re still recovering, and we probably won’t need you this time.”

Tony grimaced, but didn’t argue. He didn’t actually _want_ to come, after all. “Call me if anything comes up,” he said anyway, and made his way out of the kitchen and into the elevator before any of the others could stop him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve hurry in the direction of his bedroom and was confused for a moment before he realized that his friend probably had stored his uniform there when he came here… when? Three days ago? Four?

Wow. Tony really had done it this time.

And come to think of it, didn’t Cap have a room of his own somewhere around here?

He didn’t dwell on it too long, his mind already going out to the work waiting for him and the Extremis already reaching for the nanites he could ever so faintly sense in the basement.

And then he forgot about everything else altogether. Because something was definitely going on down there.

 

-

 

Something was definitely going on in Central Park, there was no denying it. Steve just wasn’t sure if it was Avengers business. People were behaving strangely – _very_ strangely – but that could have been due to drugs. Or they were simply very strange people.

The two policemen walking down the path beside the group of youths standing in a rough circle and swaying back and forth with blank faces certainly didn’t seem to find anything odd with the sight. Spiderwoman and Miss Marvel were at least interested, though they hadn’t yet decided to actually do anything by the time Steve arrived.

Standing in uniform in the park, his shield at the ready, he felt a little silly. “Who called us?” he asked the two women, trying not to sound irritated.

“That girl over there did.” Carol pointed towards a young girl with long, black hair who was currently in a lively discussion with Luke. “Said they’d met for a soccer match when suddenly there was this grey mist and then everyone started to become sort of zombie like.”

The girl in question kept pointing to the group of her friends, making forceful gestures and yelling at Luke. Steve couldn’t make out what she was saying, the two of them standing too far away for even his enhanced hearing to pick it up, but she seemed very frustrated.

And Steve could make an educated guess why.

“Do you feel that maybe you should be more concerned about this than you are?” he asked the two women beside him. “Because I do.”

Carol nodded. “I know this feeling. I know this is bad. Sort of.” Beside her, Jessica made an affirmative noise.

He should have taken Tony along after all. This was his field. But when he thought of calling him, Steve was overcome by the overwhelming conviction that it would be silly and unnecessary and would only keep Tony from doing more important work.

Carol raised a hand to her forehead. “It’s getting worse,” she muttered. “I want to… I can’t…”

Someone screamed. Steve looked over to the group again and saw one of the young women raise one hand to her head, the other to her throat. Her scream ended in a succession of strangled sounding coughs and then she fell over.

Whatever paralyzed their motivation to act didn’t stand a chance against this sight. Steve stated running and Carol was already in the air, flying towards the girl. Just before she reached her, the girl started twitching and coughing blood. By the time Carol landed, she had fallen still, her eyes staring blindly towards the sky.

It was barely over when the next person, a young man, started coughing a few steps away. The sound of him suffocating on his own blood was joined by that of another man at the edge of the group doing the same.

“Call the authorities,” Steve snapped at Jessica as she knelt beside a fallen man. “We need medical help here.” He managed to catch a girl as she collapsed, only to have her twitch and die in his arms, dark blood running from her mouth and nose. She couldn’t have been older than twenty.

Clenching his teeth, Steve looked around, desperate for something he could fight, something he could _do_. But there was nothing. Just a couple of people watching from the path, frowns on their faces as if they thought they should maybe react to this in some way, and at the point where two paths crossed, a statue moving softly, barely notable. Stave had to stare at it for half a minute before he realized that it was changing shape; losing its edges, getting smaller. Dissolving.

There was a fine strand of grey mist in this air, moving towards them.

“Shit,” Steve said. He activated his comm. unit, called Luke who was currently keeping the dark-haired girl from running over to her dying friends. “Get everyone away from that mist,” he ordered, gesturing towards the spectators on the pathway. “And call the others. We need back-up here.” Damn, the mist was quicker than he had thought. It was nearly upon them; just a little more and Steve would be surrounded by it and it would get into his body and kill him. Beside him, Carol and Jessica were staring as well.

He needed to call Tony. And if he didn’t get himself to move, it might be the last thing he ever did.

There was a flash of light. The dust dissipated. And with a sound like a sheet of paper being torn in half, the statue beside the path crumbled to the ground and lay there like a pile of sand.

Steve stared. Shook himself. And only realized how much the thing’s influence had hindered his actions when suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. He still could feel the apathy towards everything related to the statues, but he no longer felt the need to stand there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Iron Man landed on the lawn before him with the heavy thud of several dozen pounds of metal meeting hard earth. He straightened and didn’t move for a second, taking in the dead bodies surrounding them. The face plate stayed down, hiding his face.

“It’s worse than just the inclination to ignore them,” Steve told him. “I was very aware of what was going on, but I couldn’t think to do any of the things I should have done, including telling everyone to run for their lives.”

“Or running yourself,” Tony pointed out. “You would have died just like these kids if I hadn’t gotten here in time.”

“Speaking of which, what did you do?” Carol brushed her long hair out of her face. She looked like Steve was feeling: disturbed by her incapability to react to the threat the way she should.

“Electromagnetic pulse,” Tony explained. “Fried them dead. I had to adjust it to the… say, ‘frequency’ of their dimension first, though, otherwise it wouldn’t have had any effect. Was in a bit of a hurry, so I’m really glad that worked.”

“And you couldn’t have done that a little sooner?” Luke’s voice boomed over to them. Steve hadn’t even noticed him get closer. “Before all of these kids had to die?”

Tony didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on the dark-haired girl who had called them and was now sobbing over the body of the girl who had died in Steve’s arms.

“So was this it?” Steve asked. “You took them all out?”

“I wish.” Tony’s artificial voice was toneless as always. “Only those in the park. The EMP doesn’t have the rage for more and I can’t use a bigger one without taking out all electronics on the planet along with the nanites, including pacemakers, life-support equipment and the fail-safes of nuclear power plants. I’d rather keep that as a last resort.”

“We’re not even talking about that,” Steve decided.

“We might have to. Or rather, _you_ might have to. This is happening all over the world. It won’t stop until we stop it, and it will kill almost everyone. The EMP will kill a lot of people, but it might still turn out to be the lesser of two evils – if it happens while there are still people left to be saved.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thinking that got us into a war against each other.”

“And I stand by it,” Tony insisted, stubborn as ever. “But it might not have to come to that. In fact, I hope it won’t.”

“There must be another way,” Luke insisted.

“There isn’t. This is happening in every major city in every country of the world. _Right now_. And you know how many calls for help I picked up with Extremis? One-hundred and thirty-three.” The mask hid his face, but Steve could imagine Tony’s expression as he stared at them. “Millions of people are already affected, and only a hundred had the sense to see this as a problem.”

Steve remembers the people walking by the lawn while the kids died before their eyes, remembers himself wondering why they had even been called here, and shuddered. “What’s the difference? Why are some less affected than others? Why wasn’t she?” He pointed towards the girl still crying over her dead friends. There were hundreds of people doing just that all over the world, right now, for exactly the same reason.

“Would it surprise any of you to learn that this is my fault?”

“No,” Luke and Jessica said at the same time. Steve just frowned.

“How so?”

“I’m not sure, it’s just a theory. But I was the first to actually notice these things. I worked with them, ran all sorts of tests. Remember how they reacted to me but not to you?”

Steve did, vaguely. He just hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

“Seems like they noticed me, too. And… I don’t think they were designed as a weapon. I think they were designed as a… sort of… genetic cleanser.”

Carol gasped. “That’s even worse!”

Tony nodded, his whole posture screaming misery to anyone able to see through the armor. “I think that’s what happened to the universe the tunnels came from. There was leftover radiation there, but it was native to their own universe. These things showed up, observed, and started killing when there were people they found wanting. I would think they found most people wanting, because apparently our friends from that universe thought a nuclear strike was the lesser evil.”

“That’s horrible.” Jessica turned around, looking over the park, then up to the sky.

“What’s the criteria?” Steve asked. Maybe they could work with it, when there were enough people who would pass the test. “Why did that girl survive?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but if you asked her, I’d bet money that she has an IQ of at least one-hundred fourty.” Tony looked as if it actually pained him to say that.

“So they are testing for intelligence?” It would make sense. Tony was one of the most intelligent people on the planet, and he’d never been influenced like the others. Hank Pym, on the other hand, hadn’t cared for the statues much during their initial meeting, but then, he had obviously been distracted by something, while Tony had been focused on nothing else.

“In this case, yes. I think it’s a bit of a coincidence. If Cap had been able to notice them before me, they might have tested for physical perfection. The mortality rate would have been even higher then.”

“I doubt it. How many people with genius-level IQ are there on the planet?”

“Not many. Fortunately, I’m one of them.”

“You have a plan?” Carol asked.

“Yes. Cap, I need you with me.”

He reached out a hand and without hesitation, Steve pressed against him and wrapped an arm around Tony’s armored shoulder, the way he always did when Tony took him along for a flight. “Where are we going?”

“An old Stark Enterprises facility about fifty miles from here. It has everything you’ll need.”

“Me? What about you?”

“If you need to use it, I won’t be a factor anymore.”

Oh. Of course.

Now probably wouldn’t be a good moment to discuss this.

“And, no, there is no other way,” Tony added, as if he’d read Steve’s mind.

Maybe he had. He’d always been particularly good at that. Just as he had always been good at taking off and cutting off anything Steve might have wanted to say before he could open his mouth.

 

-

 

The flight to the facility didn’t take long. Tony went a little faster than he usually would have dared with Steve clinging to him, but time was a factor here. A big one.

They were too fast to see what was going on beneath them, but Tony knew that everywhere the statues were becoming more and more active. The mist of nanobots they dissolved into was still thick and localized, but it would spread quickly. In the end, it would get everyone.

Already, hundreds had died. Because Tony Stark hadn’t made it, had wasted too much time. There was no one else he could have blamed. He was the only one who’d even been aware of the problem.

They landed on the roof of the facility with a heavy thud. Cap let go of Tony the moment they were no longer in the air and Tony would have missed the feeling of his arms around him if he had actually been able to feel them through the armor. As soon as they had solid ground under their feet they ran through the door leading inside and down the stairs.

“So this is an EMP?”

“Among other things, yes. It’s not big enough to cover the entire world, but it’ll trigger others all over the planet to get them everywhere. I already programmed the frequency with the Extremis.” Tony led Steve to a console, showed him the controls. Hoped Steve wouldn’t have to use them. He couldn’t even find comfort in the knowledge that if they were used, Tony wouldn’t be there to see the consequences.

“I don’t even want to know why you build something that can knock out every piece of electronic in the world at once,” Steve said darkly, and Tony shrugged.

“I didn’t feel like depending on Magneto to do it should we ever need to.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Tony smirked. “With luck, I’m going to save the world. With bad luck, saving the world is your job. But don’t press the button unless you absolutely have to.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Steve looked like he hated this. Tony hated having to leave that part to him, knowing that regardless of the fact that it was Tony who had messed up and made it necessary in the first place, Steve would still feel responsible for every person the EMP would kill. “How do I know you were successful?”

“I’m going to be right here. If I die twitching on the floor, I probably failed. Maybe not, though – check with the others, ask what the statues are doing. If I was successful, they’ll notice.” _Don’t assume I failed just because it killed me,_ Tony almost added. He didn’t, in the end – there was no time for that sort of discussion.

There was no time for a lot of conversations they should have had. No time for _them_ , period.

Most of all, there was no time for regrets.

Tony opened his armor, let it drop away. He took a deep breath. “Let’s do this,” he said.

 

-

 

“Stay back,” Tony said, walking over to the other end of the room, one of his gauntlets in hand. “Stay over there. There shouldn’t be a risk, but better safe than sorry, right? Actually, better a contained, shut off chamber than the other end of the room, but what can you do? There is no room in the building they wouldn’t be able to get out of. Was never meant for this kind of thing. Besides, it was abandoned twenty years ago. I maintained the machines, not the building. Stupid, I know – should have planned for the eventuality that I might have to fight nanobots in here with you of all people at my side.” He was rambling; either a sign that he was nervous, or to keep Steve from getting a word in. “Anyway, I should be able to control these enough to make them come to me. Just don’t want them to be breathed in by you by accident. So stay over there until it’s over and keep an ear out for Carol’s report. Only if I’m dead and the statues are still moving you press that button.”

Steve wanted to say that that was a stupid plan, that he wouldn’t press a button that would kill millions anyway – not when he didn’t even really understand what was going on. He hated this, hated having to depend on someone else to make the decisions, even though it was Tony and that was still better than anyone else.

He hated being so helpless.

“What exactly is it you’re going to do?” he asked, finally demanding an answer when it was the last chance he had. Before Tony did this. Before Tony defeated these things with whatever risky, self-destructive plan he had. Steve shouldn’t even need to _be_ here because there was no way in hell things would go so wrong he’d have to press that button. Tony wouldn’t let them.

Steve knew that no matter what, Tony didn’t want that EMP to be used any more than Steve did. He would win, because he had to.

(But he might still die in the process, and ‘ _What exactly is it that you’re going to do?_ ’ would be the last thing Steve would ever have said to him.)

“Remember that sample from my lap?” A hidden compartment in Tony’s gauntlet opened and released a familiar cloud of dust. Steve involuntarily took a step back, but the cloud didn’t drift over to him. In fact, it drifted towards Tony. “All the nanites have a planet-wide hive mind. I’ll use these to access it and destroy it. First they need to get in me, though. They should connect with Extremis. Only way for me to get into the full network – the interdimensional stuff makes that a little tricky.” He flashed Steve a quick grin before he triggered a short blade to snap out of the gauntlet and used it to cut open his palm. “Directly into the bloodstream,” he explained as he turned his back. “Shortcut.”

And the cloud – just tiny, and very thin, really – disappeared, and Tony kind of jerked, once, and Steve, because that couldn’t have been it, those words, they couldn’t have been his goodbye, said, “Tony,” but it was already too late. Tony just stood there, very still, his eyes unseeing, blood dripping from his hand. Then he fell to his knees.

And then he started screaming.

 

-

 

Inviting the nanites in was really all Tony would have needed to do to access them all along. They connected with the Extremis and that opened a door for him; not just for the millions inside him right now, but to _all_ of them.

Locking on to their dimension was still hard, still hurt – but even the pain he had already experienced before did not prepare him for the agony that was connecting with trillions of them at once. They knew he was there, they tried to fight him off, and there were _so many_ of them, and they were so alien.

If he’d thought overstressing the Extremis before had hurt, it was nothing compared to what was happening now. Tony thought he could _feel_ the connections in his mind burning out, leaving only scorched scars behind. He couldn’t remember how to breathe. He couldn’t remember how to move.

But no matter how much it hurt, no matter how alien the nanites were, they were still machines. And if there was one thing Extremis was good for, it was telling machines what to do.

So that was what Tony Stark did. It was hard. It hurt. It destroyed the hard drive his mind had become, the computer that was keeping his body alive. His mind tried to protect itself, tried to shut everything out, make him pass out before it was too late, but Tony had a job to do and he couldn’t stop now, when there was so much at stake. And he only had to push a little harder, had to take this a little further. He was almost there, almost there, almost…

 

-

 

The screams weren’t even screams. Steve had heard Tony scream before – not often, but too often anyway, and he knew the sound and hated it. This, this he hated more. It was a sound that wanted to be a scream but was lacking the air. There was nothing voluntary about it; an automatic reaction to agony that couldn’t be put into words.

Steve did as he was told. He stayed on the comm., kept contact with Carol who told him what was going on. The statues continued to dissolve, turning into dust and taking out people in the streets, in parks, in shopping malls. The Avengers did their best to keep everyone away from them, but it was hard when the people didn’t see the danger. Carol sounded frustrated, helpless.

Steve knew how she was feeling. The first thing he did after Tony started checking out was tell her to send a medical emergency team out to them, right now. Someone to help Tony when this was over. It was all he could do.

After a few minutes, Tony’s whole body started twitching. Since he had turned his back before starting, Steve couldn’t see his face, but he could hear the wet chocking sounds the not-screams had degenerated to. The twitching turned into full blown convulsions that ended with Tony’s body going limp and crumbling to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Eventually.

Steve was moving before he even hit the floor. “Carol?” he snapped into the comm, needing her reply but unable to wait for it. “Carol, what’s happening?”

There was only static. Steve’s heart was racing. What if what Tony had done hadn’t only killed the nanites but also his means of communication (and Tony)? What would he do then, if he didn’t know if it had worked, if people were still being killed? Did he take the chance? “Carol! Luke. Anyone?”

“Miss Marvel here,” Carol’s voice came through the connection. “I have no idea what just happened, but all the statues suddenly collapsed. Turned to dust, basically, but the dust is just lying around, not hurting anyone. And the best thing is, I can look at them without the urge to shrug and deal with something else.” There was a brief laugh. “Whatever Tony did, it worked.”

“Yeah.” Steve had reached his friend, fell to his knees beside him and turned him over. “Oh God.”

“What is it?” Carol sounded alarmed now, but Steve had no attention to spare for her question. Tony’s face was smeared with blood running out of his nose and ears and tickling from the corner of his mouth. He was completely limp as Steve pulled him into his arms and frantically checked for a pulse, for breath. It was both there but weak, irregular. Failing.

“How long till the medics get here?” he asked, his voice strangely toneless to his own ears, devoid of all emotions. It was a contrast to the quick, panicked movements with which he gathered Tony in his arms and stood, running rather than walking out of the room. Just like the dark blood on Tony’s face was a contrast to the whiteness of his skin.

“They’re just a couple of minutes out.” Carol was all matter-of-fact now. “Can you get him to the roof?”

“On my way.” Steve made it through the corridor and up the stairs, all the time thinking how fragile, how brittle Tony felt in his arms and trying to remember if it had been this bad the last time he’d found him bleeding on the floor and carried him to bed.

Tony’s face was pressed into Steve’s chest, his arms and legs dangling limply. They made it to the roof and Steve could already hear the roar of a helicopter in the distance when Tony started convulsing again, making those horrible, chocking sounds, and bringing his hands up to push at Steve, or cling to him, or both. It lasted a few seconds, then he fell still again, and when Steve placed him on the ground, he saw new, darker blood running from Tony’s mouth.

He wasn’t breathing anymore.

 

-

 

Later, Steve would have little conscious memory of what came after.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The world began and ended in pain. Tony drifted through it, accepting without question that it was all there was. Other impressions came and went, failing to catch his attention. Sounds, movements, touches – he knew they were there but they hurt, too, and didn’t matter.

It was a long time before he was able to tell apart various kinds of pain. At least it _felt_ like a long time. Maybe he was wrong. Time stretched differently when pain was involved. It felt to him, anyway, as if he’d been away for a while. Maybe a century.

Breathing hurt. That was possibly the first thought he had when he came to. His head hurt worse, but that pain was so all-consuming it didn’t even deserve notice. But breathing, yes, that was something that happened, and he could stop that kind of pain by not breathing anymore, but even there and then he knew that that was a stupid idea. Besides, instincts would kick in and then it would only hurt worse. He knew how that worked.

When more and more conscious memories came back, he thought that this was a lot like waking up after he’d passed out in his workshop the other day (week? Year?), only worse. Moving would be bad, then, he decided. Would make him feel sick.

But he didn’t move and felt sick anyway. Couldn’t bring up the strength to retch. It was a very unpleasant feeling.

There were voices and then nothing.

The first time he came fully awake, Steve was there. Funny how that was becoming a familiar sight. Tony barely managed to open his eyes to slits and he wasn’t even sure he’d really seen Steve sitting there. It was a Steve-shaped person, sure, but that could be any physically perfect super solider who hadn’t shaved in a day or three.

But then someone took his hand and Tony made an effort to open his eyes again. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

Maybe he was missing some time there.

“Tony?” That was definitely Steve’s voice. It was too loud and hurt his head, but wincing was too much effort. “Tony, I know you’re awake. Just, say something. Anything. Please!”

Tony didn’t feel like saying anything. Too much effort. It was taking effort to _breathe_. But Steve sounded like it was really important to him, and Tony, on principle, hated to disappoint him. So he gathered his strength and his will and whispered, “Yea,” or some sound similar to it. Then, for good measure, he added, “I’m not dead.” It was as much a question as it was a statement.

“No, you’re not.” The relief in Steve’s voice was entirely inappropriate, considering that he had to have noticed this a while ago. Maybe he…

Oh.

Of course. The pain actually did have a beginning, and that beginning had felt like Tony’s brain going up in flames. He made his Fibonacci-test, wondered if it was a bad sign that he hadn’t thought of it until now, but nope, he still could calculate with rather impressive speed. Or maybe he just remembered the numbers? Either way, he didn’t feel particularly brain damaged.

With effort, Tony opened his eyes a little more, did his best to focus them. He was in a hospital – no surprise there. Steve was sitting by the side of his bed and…

Were those flowers on the nightstand?

Back to Steve. Unshaven, civilian clothes, no uniform peeking out under the open collar of his shirt. Dark circles under his eyes. Needed sleep, probably food. Having taken in all he needed to know for the moment, Tony allowed his eyes to mostly close again. “Why are you here?” he asked.

Speaking hurt, too. What a surprise.

“I had to make sure you’re okay. The doctors said… I just wanted to be here when you woke up.” Steve was speaking much softer now. It was nice. Confusing, but nice.

“How long…?” That seemed like an important question. Like something he was supposed to ask, even though right now he didn’t really care.

Probably not a century. Steve wouldn’t wait by his side that long.

“Almost two weeks.” Steve’s voice was rough. “We didn’t know if you’d make it, to be honest. You did so much damage to yourself. Damn it, Tony…” The pressure around Tony’s hand increased, though he knew that Steve was still holding back, being gentle. He could have crushed every bone without trying. “Why do you always have to do this?”

“Not like…” Wow, speaking was hard. Required air. Who would’ve thought? “…I had another choice. And… worked out. Didn’t it?” For the fist time he worried that it might not have worked. He vaguely remembered the nanite hive mind yielding to his will, and Steve wouldn’t be here if they had killed him, but still. So much could have gone wrong. And Extremis was useless – just thinking about accessing it was agony, so Tony couldn’t check the news.

“Yeah, it worked. You did it.” There was a hand in Tony’s hair, now. Nice. Unexpected, though. “But you nearly killed yourself in the process. You… dammit, Tony, you _fried your brain_! And you knew that would happen.”

It wasn’t even a question. To be fair, Tony _had_ known it was a possibility. But he was also pretty convinced it hadn’t actually happened, otherwise he wouldn’t have been here thinking this. “I don’t feel brain damaged.”

“You are.” Steve sounded less gentle now. “You don’t even know what you did to yourself. When I say you fried your brain I mean it just like that. You damaged it, irreparably.”

The words didn’t even make sense. But maybe there was a reason for it. For the first time, Tony felt something like fear. He had known it was a possibility. He hadn’t thought he’d actually survive to face the consequences.

His eyes focused on Steve’s face. It was still difficult. What if it would never get any better than this? What if he wasn’t simply too weak to move and talk right? What if the sluggishness of his thoughts wasn’t just down to really good pain killers?

“How… how bad…?” Even talking became increasingly hard.

Steve sighed. The hand in Tony’s hair began to stroke his head, as if he were a child. “Mostly, it seems to have hit the part of your brain responsible for your autonomic body functions. I’d say it could be worse, but your body literally forgot how to breathe and how to keep your heart beating, so that would be a lie.” He sounded a little desperate there, even though he tried a smile. Tony had hurt him again, that much he understood. “They weren’t entirely sure about the rest of your mind, but I take the fact that we are having this conversation as a good sign.”

So did Tony. It all came down to the fact that he wasn’t dead, though. “I’m breathing,” he pointed out.

“Yes, now. You need a little help, though. We… They had you on full life support for a week before they managed to set the… that device you gave Pepper Potts to save her life.”

“Electromagnetic repulsor tie,” Tony helped, and he only ran out of air once.

“Yes, that. They gave it to you. It’s keeping you alive, now.”

Huh. That explained a lot. Tony looked down, tried to catch a glimpse, but his chest was hidden by bandages. He tried to move his hand but didn’t manage more than a weak twitch of his fingers.

Steve helped him. Took the hand he was holding and placed it on Tony’s chest, so he could feel the hard chasing of the RT underneath the bandages. “Careful,” he said. “I broke your rips while giving you CPR.” He didn’t sound apologetic.

“Huh.” Apparently, all Tony could do now was make stupid noises. “You mean. You kissed me again an… and I wasn’t awake to appre…ciate it?” He tried a smile, but even that was hard.

“I can do it again when it’s not necessary to get air into your lungs,” Steve promised solemnly. He placed Tony’s hand back on the sheets and leaned in to brush his lips over his forehead. Not quite the kind of kiss Tony had been dreaming of, but nice none the less. “Now I’m going to go get a doctor, and call Pepper back from whatever she’s doing to save your company so she can yell at you, and then, after you got a lot of rest and can keep your eyes open for longer than seconds at a time, we’re going to talk about all this.” He smiled, but it looked slightly evil. (Was Captain America even allowed to look evil? Shouldn’t evilness, like, instantly disqualify him for the job?) “And don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to talk. Because you are going to be here for a while.”

 

-

 

Everything got a little better after Tony had fully woken up. Steve even got some sleep. Technically, he knew that he had dozed off every now and then in the past two weeks, but it hadn’t been nearly enough, and it was a small mercy that for once no immediate dilemma had threatened the world while he didn’t have the presence of mind to deal with it.

He remembered thinking, in one of his more optimistic moments, that if he was really going to try and see where this thing with Tony could go, this mutual attraction, then he’d better get used to sitting in hospitals, not knowing if his lover would ever wake up, or what state he would be in if he did. The alternative was for Steve to better watch over him, or get Tony to better watch over himself, but both of those options were equally unlikely. Steve wasn’t _that_ optimistic.

Thanks to the super solider serum, Steve was stronger than Tony, more resilient. He healed faster, was harder to hurt, immune to illness. Most of all, he possessed self-preservation instincts. He’d known all along that he would most likely survive his friend – especially now that he’d learned that even if he died, chances were it wouldn’t last. All he could hope for – all he could _ask_ for – was that when the time came, it wouldn’t be by Tony’s own hands.

Or Steve’s.

During the days when Tony’s hospital room had been constantly filled with the steady, disconcerting hiss of the ventilator, both Steve and Pepper had tried to talk Jarvis into finally moving back to the mansion, worried about him being alone in the tower if Tony didn’t make it. But Jarvis had insisted that someone had to be there to prepare the place for when Master Anthony returned.

Rhodes had come back from his mission, a little prematurely as Steve later learned. He’d stayed in New York until Tony woke up and they could talk, then he’d left again. Pepper Potts had recovered from the surgery that removed her RT remarkably quickly to drift in and out of the hospital room, too busy to stay, too concerned to stay away. Tony was basically all she had left, Steve knew. Carol had dropped in a lot, called every day to ask for news. Peter came once, but he hated hospitals. Jan had brought flowers and spent half an hour stroking Tony’s hair while Hank hovered uncomfortably in the doorway. Once, Steve had arrived at the room just in time to see someone leave who looked a lot like Don Blake.

It probably would have done Tony some good to see just how many friends he had left. Still, Steve was selfishly glad that the moment Tony had finally woken up had belonged to him alone. Even if it hadn’t been particularly romantic.

The minutes on the roof of the abandoned SE facility, waiting for the helicopter to land while desperately trying to keep Tony alive, had been among the worst of Steve’s life. It had taken so long before he got help; he’d felt Tony’s rips break under his hands, kept waiting for Tony to start breathing again and with every minute he didn’t, Steve had become more convinced that he never would.

And he’d been right, in a way. Baring miracles, Tony’s body would never again be able to stay alive without technological help. Ever so careful not to wake his friend or cause him unnecessary pain, Steve placed a hand over Tony’s chest and felt the hard plane of the device that was settled so disturbingly deeply into his body. It wasn’t even that different from the chest plate that used to keep Tony alive, Steve told himself. Or from the mechanical heart he’d had later. Tony’s life had depended on technology for as long as Steve had known him. He didn’t know why this time it made Tony seem so fragile.

Suddenly, one moment to the next, Steve was just tired. Tired of fighting with Tony, tired of being angry, tired of holding grudges. It wasn’t worth it. Losing Tony would have killed him, and if that was how he felt about the prospect, holding on to his anger, righteous or not, was really just a waste of time and effort.

As far as epiphanies went, this one was kind of understated. There was no one to witness it but the small, sad smile on Steve’s face and the limp hand held gently between his. When Carol and Jan came in ten minutes later, Steve had pulled himself together. When Carol told him to go get some food and rest, he got up and left. In the canteen, he had a sandwich and a salad. Afterwards, he drove home to the mansion, took a shower and went to bed.

The next day, he went back to the hospital. Just like the day after. On the third day, Doctor Doom tried to destroy the city and Steve missed visiting hours. He went anyway, and no one tried to stop him.

 

-

 

“So,” Steve said on the fourth day After, when Tony had been awake and coherent for more than an hour at a time and thereby broken his previous record. “The bugs. What did they have to do with everything? They were no sentient species in control of the statues, were they?”

He didn’t really think they had been. In fact, he genuinely hoped that they hadn’t been, because killing mindless monsters was one thing, killing sentient creatures another, even if they were eating the population of his hometown. Mostly, though, Steve asked to distract Tony and keep him from trying to escape the hospital bed when he could barely even lift his arms on his own.

Tony, to his relief, shook his head. “I doubt it.” His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. “Can’t know for sure, of course, but so far I’m going with the theory that they were simply animals with the odd ability to eat their way from one universe to the next, and that the statues followed them here.”

Steve frowned. “Interesting theory. Based on what?”

“Observations and readings I got in the tunnels. I think – and keep in mind that this is just a theory, not that it matters much – that the bugs came here purely by coincidence, migrating from one universe to the next. And the nanites must have been tuned in to them somehow, because they only showed up after the bugs woke from their hibernation. They were probably programmed to find traces of their own dimension and seek them out.”

“That’s a lot of speculation. I thought you hacked their programming. Shouldn’t you know for sure?”

Tony scowled at him. “I was focused on other stuff by the time I finally managed to hack them, and then my brain kind of went up in flames, so some details might have slipped my notice.” He was in a bad mood, hated being in the hospital and not in his workshop, Steve could tell. Tony hated being so weak and his overactive mind didn’t cope well with being forced to rest.

“You know nothing more for sure? What the nanites came for? Who send them?”

“Not for sure, no,” Tony admitted darkly. “But I picked up enough to make an educated guess and say that they weren’t sent for us. I think whoever originally created them was just very bad at programming their agenda. They were meant to find the bugs, and take them out, I think, which leads me to the conclusion that the bugs must have been a serious problem where they came from. The creators of the nanites wanted to protect other universes from them and sent the nanites to become active whenever the bugs became active.”

“You think,” Steve added.

“I think.”

“What went wrong? Because if there is one thing they didn’t do, it’s fight alien bugs.”

“Either bad programming or sabotage. Maybe their creators wanted to make sure that the nanites only killed bugs, not the inhabitants of the invaded worlds. It seems pretty likely, actually. But yeah, something went wrong, and the original test of ‘Are you a monster bug: yes/no’ turned into something else.”

“So they didn’t test the bugs but the people?” Steve asked skeptically.

“Something like that. There was testing going on, but there were no perimeters set for what was being tested for, that much I could tell. I created those perimeters when I interacted with them. They were like a blank sheet with only a vague idea of what they were meant to do, and re-created their own purpose.”

“And that re-” Steve stopped himself before he could finish the sentence. It had resulted in the death of thousands of people all over the world whose only crime had been not being a genius. Tony didn’t need to hear that. He knew, anyway.

He’d almost killed himself trying to prevent anything bad from happening, was still frighteningly weak from his lone fight to defeat this threat, and still felt guilty for not having been fast enough. Steve knew there was nothing he could do to change that; it was another perceived failure Tony would carry for the rest of his life.

“What about their creators?” Steve asked to pull Tony back and distract him when his gaze turned distant and lost.

For the moment, it worked. “I think they are dead. Maybe their own creations killed them. Maybe someone re-programmed them. I don’t know. In the end, most of this is speculation.”

“We’ll probably never know for sure.” Steve didn’t like that. It didn’t feel like closure. A threat they didn’t fully understand was a threat that could happen again, even if in this case it was unlikely.

Tony smiled a weak smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Nothing you can do about that, I’m afraid.” By now, his voice was barely audible anymore and his eyes drooping. Their conversation had been going on for far too long.

“I can deal with that.” Steve placed a hand on the top of Tony’s head, felt the steady heat of his fever. “And I think it’s time for you to get some rest.”

He would have liked to pride himself with the fact that Tony actually listened to him, but suspected that by the time he said the words, Toby had already been asleep.

 

-

 

It was almost another week before Tony was strong enough to do so much as sit up without help. It was only five days before he tried to get himself signed out of the hospital against medical advice, though Steve had no idea how he had planned to actually _leave_ the place, since even his crawling capacities were limited at the time. Flying, maybe. He could still control the armor the way he had before, but as Steve understood, for the moment at least that was all he could do.

The upside of Extremis being mostly offline was that there were no more hallucinations. Tony no longer looked at him as if he wasn’t sure he was real whenever Steve wasn’t mad at him. He still looked as if he didn’t know what to do with it, but that was something Steve could work with. They just needed some time.

And time they had while Tony recovered. It wasn’t just the brain damage and resulting surgery to save his life that kept him from getting back to his feet as quickly as he would have liked but also the fact that he had been very weak and sick to begin with. A part of Steve was almost grateful for the forced break Tony had to take, because it meant a lot of rest, medication, and food – though for the first several days, the latter entered Tony’s body only through an IV line in his arm.

Someone was with him at almost all times. It was all they could do to keep him from tearing the IV out, disconnecting all the machines measuring his vital functions (“The RT takes care of that. If that fails, there’s little you can do about it, is there?”) and finding his way out on his hands and knees if he had to. Tony really hated hospitals. There was never enough coffee, he couldn’t go and do what he wanted and people were paying far too much attention to his health.

He hated waking up from a nightmare not knowing where he was, and the screaming alarms of the monitoring equipment when he inevitably fell off the bed in his attempt to get away from whatever it was that haunted him.

He liked heaving his hair stroked, though. Steve could only get away with that when Tony was half asleep already, but it seemed to calm him down and keep the nightmares away. Jan had given Steve the tip, though he tried not think about how she’d found out about it in the first place.

Eventually, finally, the doctors allowed Tony to go home again. It happened under protest, but that was mostly formal at that point, to make sure no one would sue them if Tony kneeled over and died two days after his release. Steve suspected it was either let him go or have one of the nurses murder him for being an annoying asshole. Tony wanted to leave, and he was damn good at making sure no one would try to keep him any longer than absolutely necessary.

One of the conditions was that someone was there to take care of Tony at all times for at least two weeks, and Steve volunteered before anyone else got a chance to get a word in. Tony looked half-suspicious, half-confused, but was too intelligent to protest something that would get him what he wanted.

Well. He certainly hadn’t wanted Steve to carry him out of the hospital and to the car, but it was that or a wheelchair. Tony hadn’t liked the wheelchair. He’d never use one of those again in his life, he’d declared, and kept threatening to fall over in his attempts to walk under his own power, until Steve had swept him up before any of the doctors and nurses around could realize that letting him leave might not be such a great idea after all.

They made it back to the tower without exchanging more than two words. Steve carried Tony up from the garage and was aiming straight for his bedroom, but Tony insisted on the living room, claiming he wanted to watch some tv. There was a tv in his bedroom, but Steve didn’t protest. He suspected that Tony simply had enough of beds for a while.

So he kept his distance, let Jarvis do his mother-henning. Only when Tony started to doze off did he gather him up from the couch and carry him to bed. Once he was tugged in, Steve took off his shoes and climbed in with him. He didn’t need as much sleep as he had before the serum, but the last weeks had been trying, and he always slept better next to Tony. Tony always slept better next to him.

No one expected him to come back to the mansion for the night anymore.

The next morning, he woke up at the crack of dawn. Tony, to his surprise, was already awake, watching him through half-open but very aware eyes. They had never actually gotten around to talking about anything. Now was as good a time as any, Steve though. There were a million things he could have said, but instead he found himself cupping Tony’s cheek, leaning in and pressing a soft but very real kiss to his lips, and that worked too, he supposed.

Tony, much to his relief, returned the kiss. When Steve drew back, however, his eyes were still guarded. “This is such an incredibly bad idea,” he said quietly. “I don’t even… I don’t understand why you would want this.”

“I hate fighting with you,” Steve explained. “I hate seeing you hurt and I don’t want this distance between us anymore.”

“You wouldn’t want to fight Logan either, yet somehow I don’t see you kissing him like this.”

“There’s a difference. I’m an adult, Tony. I can tell. And so can you.” He placed his hand on Tony’s cheek again. “Can’t you?”

Tony covered Steve’s hand with his own and closed his eyes. “Do you want the honest or the selfish answer?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Selfishly, I want this. I don’t want to lose you. I wanted you almost as long as I knew you.” He took a deep breath. “But if I was honest, I’d have to point out that it can never work.”

“Why not?”

Tony opened is eyes again. “Because I’m so incredibly messed up, and you’re _you_ , and I did things I can never make right, and you hate me. With reason.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t.” There was force in Steve’s voice now, though he still kept it down. “I know what hate feels like, and I never hated you. I was hurt… you _hurt_ me, Tony, more than anyone else could have, but that’s only because I love you so much.”

He should have known better than to expect Tony to just accept that. “What’s the point if you can’t forgive me?”

“Did you… are you actually evil? Did you try to take over the world? Did you do anything for personal gain even though you knew it would harm others, and didn’t care?”

“Of course not.” Tony still had it in him to sound offended. Good.

“I know you did what you thought was best. I didn’t agree with it. I still don’t, but I understand. You messed up, but so did I, and…” Steve closed his eyes for a moment. He was Captain America. Everyone always expected him to be right about everything, to the point where it became incredibly hard to admit when he was wrong. “And you’re not the only one who has to ask for forgiveness.”

Tony was staring at him now, full of wonder. He was the only person who saw enough of the human in the legend to challenge and question Steve’s decisions, and Steve had always, _always_ loved him for it. And yet, the fact that Steve appreciated it seemed to come as a surprise still.

Admittedly, lately their conflicts had moved a little beyond a simple disagreement.

“I don’t…” Tony startled. “You don’t love me.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“I think you’re confused. You _can’t_ love me. I’m…” He didn’t actually say ‘not worth it’, but Steve could hear it anyway, and that hurt, too. “I don’t understand how you could.”

“You’re not that much of a genius that you can understand everything,” Steve said with a soft smile and moved in to kiss Tony again. “Let’s try this. Let’s just try this and see what happens, and maybe I can make you understand one day.” He probably wouldn’t. Tony’s issues were too deep-rooted to simply go away because Steve had confessed his love. And there would be fights, and conflicts of interest, and it would never be smooth sailing for long. But it would be worth it. If their civil war had taught Steve anything, it was that.

Things wouldn’t be alright for a long time, but that was alright, because this was not the end.

He took Tony’s hand, and Tony returned the pressure of his fingers. “Okay,” he said hoarsely, and it looked like the word took effort, but he also looked determined. Steve could see the very moment he made up his mind and set his goal. “Okay.”

 

November 30th,2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this story was originally only a working tilte I intened to change later. It was inspired by the song "Too Late" by Fisher, which I simply happened to listen to at the time. In the end I decided that it was actually quite fitting and left it.
> 
> The alternive tilte would have been "People yelling at each other a lot".


End file.
